Bob Kerrey Interviews William Cohen

senator carry thank you very much Mr chairman uh Mr secretary nice to see you again good to see you Senator uh first of all let me say as you were introducing yourself u u u I had not until I prepared for this hearing realized and you reforce it that that you were the uh father of the Special Operations Command and it must have given you a considerable amount of pride to see how effective Special Operations units were in Afghanistan Iraq and according to the reports today in the new Kush again trying to trying to run down Bin Laden as we speak and Senator K you may recall one of the complaints that used to come from the Pentagon and the executive branches that Congress engages in too much micromanagement I think that was the case and the um the also the Reformation of The Joint Chiefs of Stafford Goldwater Nichols of macromanagement but I thought it played a very important role certainly both of those were and and they went you to micromanagement they've got something they want you to support so um but let me also say with great respect I do think that that had the had I I I do think that in 98 that that a special operations unit with an element of surprise could have had a tremendous impact at the particular point it's a judgment call you got to make uh it's a much different situation than it is today uh and I appreciate that very much one look one of the problems I think that that that I have with this whole thing is that we were attacked on the 11 September 2001 by the same people that attacked the coal on the 12th of October uh 2000 by the same people who attempted to attack the Sullivans a few months earlier by the same people who were responsible from multiple Millennium attacks in 1999 by the same people who attacked our embassies on the 7th of O of of of August 1998 and now as we understand it by the same people who had previous attacks back through the 1990s perhaps up to an including the World Trade Center bombing one so it's not just that it's that that we were attacked successfully by 19 men with less than a half a million dollars utterly I mean they just defeated every single defensive mechanism we had up in place it's that we were that this is the same group that had attacked us on many other occasions in the past and that's why I keep coming to the question why would we have a presidential directec in place in 1998 that said that the Department of Defense and our military was going to be used principally for a response if we were attacked in a local and state situation and to support what the Department of Justice was doing I I just I don't understand uh why our uh why the the military wasn't given a a a priority and a primary role in the fight against not just terrorism but the fight against AMA Bin Laden I mean I presume you've seen the the the the declaration of war that he released on the 23rd of February 1998 that was very precise again issued by somebody who had demonstrated not just a willingness to kill Americans but the capacity to kill Americans and every single time I heard the administration come up before the intelligence committee that I was on we were just trying to keep doing what you had done for years before uh it was I'm we're going to send the FBI to investigate this stuff and I would say my God I don't understand this uh they killed armman and Cobar Towers they attacked our facilities in the in in East Africa they they they they attacked are Sailors on the coal I don't understand and still today don't understand why the military wasn't given a dominant role and I wonder if you're looking back on it today do you think we underutilize the military during the 1990s and and the war against uh in this case radical islamist led by AMA Bin Laden first of all I I've seen your comments about the need to declare war against Al-Qaeda we were at war with Al-Qaeda we weren't declaring it as such and the president going to Congress saying declare war against al Al-Qaeda I take your point about uh Ben Laden being very precise he was very precise in issuing a personal F against me uh I was put on the list uh there was a price tag uh there were several attempts which I don't have to go into details about uh going after me so I was very much aware that this was a war that have been declared against the United States including uh members of the president's cabinet personally um putting us at uh you know risk as well as our military personnel the use of the military the only use I could have seen in terms of could we have done more against Ben Bin Laden was really talk about putting a massive Force into Afghanistan over the objection you've heard this this morning and it's something that I have to had to take into account could we in fact take a much more aggressive military operation against Bin Laden without the support uh of Pakistan uh or any of the neighboring countries General zin's name has been surfaced on several occasions here you know when you when you recommend people to advise you and I was the one who recommended the general Zin be the commander of the sencom you look at their background you look at their war records you look at how they've conducted themselves and you trust their you you hopefully trust their judgment uh General Zin made a number of recommendations which I took uh to heart because he was of the opinion that had we taken certain types of military action it would have been quote ineffective counterproductive he was the same general who recommended that we not overreact when there was a military coup in Pakistan saying wait a minute I've worked with this General I think we may be able to persuade him to be much more supportive than he has been than we think in the past as a result of that kind of relationship that General zinny had with General mushari and president mhari later President mhari we were able to help th attacks during the Millennium so uh you have to at some point put some judgment in the experts that you call upon to give you advice uh could I have second guest chairman of the Joint Chiefs General Shelton yes could I have second guest General Zenny did I have reason to based upon my experience with them and the answer was no I put a lot of faith in their recommendations and their judgment and I never found them quote risk averse they really were more Mission successful in their orientation saying if we do this we're likely to suceed if we do the following we're likely to fail those were the kinds of uh of decisions we had to make so what would uh what could have been done we had lethal Authority we were not Sandy Berger said we weren't trying to um to um send simply a summons to Bin Laden in Afghanistan we were trying to kill him him or anyone else who was there at the time that was uh you know what they call a warning shot to the temple we were trying to kill Bin Laden and anyone there that went to that camp did we have the kind of information that would have allowed us to get him later we didn't see it it was never recommended and I I can account for everything that you've heard but there was never a recommendation that came to the National Security team that said we've got a good shot at getting him let's take military action and do it the only other alternative would have been could we have persuaded Pakistan get out of the way we're coming uh we don't need your support we're going to invade Afghan fistan I I leave it to you Senator kry and to others who have served in Congress do you think it's reasonable that under the circumstances that any president including President Clinton could have gone to Congress in October of 2000 said these people are trying to kill us and now therefore we're going to invade Afghanistan and take them out I don't think so but there are other members can disagree a judgment call you sat on the other side of the uh of that decision well uh that presumes that the president would come to Congress and request authoriz for Action there as you know there have been many moments when the president doesn't request such authorization he just does it can I make let me make one of point one of point you remember Kosovo yeah here we had a campaign going on in Kosovo I don't know how many times you came to the White House but there were meetings after meetings with me members of Congress coming down to the president saying it's a bad idea when are you going to get out what's the exit strategy how much is it going to cost us we had to sustain a 78 day bombing campaign frankly without the support of Congress and uh it was a successful campaign uh and as a result of that we saved a lot of lives but I give you that as an example to say the notion that somehow President Clinton or even President Bush absent 911 could have walked into the halls of Congress say declare war against alaa I think secretary I must I say you're making my argument the I supported what the president did in Kosovo I supported what he did in Bosnia it was in the minority in both in both time but that didn't stop him from doing it the fact that it was it was difficult the fact that it was hard the fact even at times it was unpopular he believed in it and he rallied the American people to the cause he also rallied allies he R he didn't do that with Bin Laden but he also rallied allies to the cause you had the NATO countries involved in Bosnia and Kosovo uh you have uh in 9 after 911 you have him rallying the International Community to help uh go into Afghanistan prior to that time I dare say there is not a single country that would have been supporting uh the president of the United States declaring war and invading Afghanistan prior to 911 May You can disagree with that judgment I don't think there would a single country and I frankly think that Congress would have overwhelmingly rejected it I I I would disagree I respectfully disagree first of all again as I said there there are many instances where the president doesn't even come to Congress I mean operation just caus in Panama he didn't come you he didn't say come to Congress and say gee is it okay to do that Grenada the president didn't come to Congress and said is that okay to do it u i mean and and Bosnia and kosova the Very examples that you cite the president didn't have the support of Congress and he went ahead and did I think he did the right thing but the fact that it's unpopular that it's difficult that our allies are not necessarily with it do shouldn't deter a president who believes that what we have is a serial killer on our hands who had begun killing us at least as early as 1993 who had issued a very specific declaration of war calling Islamic men to join an Islamic Army on the 23rd of February 1998 and then demonstrated that he had the capacity in a very sophisticated way on the 7th of August to carry out that threat and what did we I mean I I just we did not we had a we had a we had a round in our chamber and we didn't use it that's how I see it and I and I and I I don't know if it had prevented 911 but I I absolutely do not believe that just because the commander and chief sister and said Gee this thing is unpopular therefore I can't do it I don't think that's a good argument car I know secretary rum is going to use it here in a few minutes uh and I'm going to be just as harsh with him I don't I don't buy it well Senator K let's go back let's go back back to the uh the Persian Gulf War 91 yeah there you had Saddam Hussein invading Kuwait there you had the president of the United States President Bush 41 going to the International Community Gathering support and then deciding to come to the Congress to get Congressional support close call you had I think it passed the Senate by four votes under those extraordinary circumstances but I I would submit to you the notion that You' be able in the fall of 2000 uh of 2000 to have rallied the Congress and the country to invade Afghanistan and to have had the support of Pakistan Tajikistan Kazakhstan all of the other people in the region I don't think is realistic judgment call we could be faulted for that I just don't think it was feasible well I and I just say for the record I better have tried and failed than not to triy at all and I and I think in this particular case again what you've got the thing that's most troubling about 9/11 is that it was carried out by a group of PE the same group of people that had killed Americans the previous October that had tried to kill Americans on on on the Sullivan just before that in the summer of 2000 there's a there's a it's a it's a Serial series of events uh stretching back for a decade that's the problem with the declaration of war by the guy who's leading the organization and we were trying to kill those members whenever we could find them but you're not talking about people sitting in a a city waiting to be these are mure it's like Mercury on a mirror you're talking about individuals who can hide I mean let's look at what's taking place today I I point out again you've got thousands of people on the ground uh in Afghanistan with the support of Pakistan and we still are unable to track him down and to kill him you look you look at the performance of the Special Operations units in Northern Afghanistan and in the war against Afghanistan and they leveraged thousands of of of of G's effort they were enormously effective likewise in Iraq and likewise again right now in in in Afghanistan I agree I think we owe them a tremendous amount of uh of gratitude for all of the sacrifice they make and the training they have that's the reason we are the finest in the world because of that training well what what was the military objective on 20 August 1998 the military objective was to kill as many uh people uh in those camps as we could to take out the Pharmaceutical Plant uh uh because we had reason to believe actionable intelligence but but but there were more men south of kahar than there was up by Coast why did we attack that particular because the intelligence uh was that we believed that Bin Laden and his associates were going to be there we went after as many uh as we could and as high as we could we didn't know whether he'd be there for sure we uh hoped he would be there uh He Slipped Away apparently did you did you consider putting a special ops team a relatively small special ops team just to get eyes on the prize just to be able to be sort of Ford air controllers to tell rather than having to rely on satellites or tribals that tell you where Bin Laden was I think that the Judgment was that it was uh a more discret operation likely to be less compromised than if we tried to put people on the ground at that time uh again you can question that judgment but uh that was a recommendation coming that had the best chance of success of getting him we're going to hear from secretary runi in a little bit and I want to ask you one last question in that regard during the transition you you briefed the secretary on 50 items uh and also briefed him on on Al-Qaeda and and and and perhaps he's he's going to call in previous interview he didn't remember much about the briefing on Al-Qaeda uh can you offer any reasons I listed since I had limited time with secretary Rumsfeld I I knew that he had U was quite familiar with the office and what I tried to do is to give him the whole panoply in a very short period of time uh knowing that there were going to be specific briefings on by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs and others joint staff the National Security adviser and uh and also the um CIA so we tried to cover as many subject as we could the very first subject had to do uh with a major threat to the United States involving um Al-Qaeda uh or Bin Laden's Associates but an extremist group U launching an attack um domestically I don't think I want to talk about it any more than that but that was the number one item everything else on the item were issues that I thought he should at least be aware of but number one was my concern and frankly I came to Capitol Hill I met I think with just a toal of perhaps 8 to 10 people to talk about the threat that existed uh and what needed to be done toh to help counter it but I don't think I want to talk in conclusion Mr secretary as I said at the beginning Goldwater nickel Special Operations Command the men and women of the Air Force Army Navy Marine Corps and Coast Guard that won the war in Afghanistan and Iraq that that was your that was your troops and you ought to be feel very proud of it thank you thank you very much