Members, shall we say were not fond of israelis. Consequently was constrained and the need to keep the war going on long enough the israelis would want to to retaliate for being had by Saddam Hussein. At the same time, the desire among many within the middle east for an arab solution must turn if he went further towards baghdad and took over back dad by forests, that this would create greater amity among arab members to be that in some ways as the reestablishment of western colonialism. But theres a very important distinction, a revelation she was in the archives and theres always the questions when the decision comes out about whether or not American Forces should continue on to baghdad in 1991. This was not a discussion within the white house for a very important reason. The ultimate goal beyond the liberation of kuwait was removal of Saddam Hussein from power. There was a 100 certainty on highlevel officials that this would happen anyway. Saddam hussein had embarrassed. His own army was out to get him. If you have two weeks, it would be a shocking seven days. 999 times out of 1000 think thats exactly how things wouldve played out for saddam wouldve not survived. Unfortunately for the Bush Administrations perspective, george h. W. Bushs dave, saddam rolled the dice and made it, but given the question and i began, they would take the same bed again. I do think the breadth of the coalition to play a role in that calculation. It is in many ways a strange calculation. My Vantage Point is from romania were only a few months before in 1989 had been overthrown and the only violent overthrow and Eastern Europe after the fall of the wall. Such esco had been in romania and then a big holiday of Saddam Hussein and also a variant. And his successors many of them came out of the communist party apparatus. They were not the closest associates, but were nonetheless communes. By mr. Meanie imports anyway . Romania havent havent had 11 of 13 seats on the council. So we really needed, even the support of romania and his successors at a time in the night date didnt like an awful lot of things they were in fact doing. So keep in a coalition that arrived in that deep onboard i think did have some thing to say about constraining object is. I was a colonel at the time all this discussion is going on, i was focused on running off guard and tackle. Id been to there two years before on the joint staff and executive directory joint chiefs of staff and wednesday are for general house for six months. The whole thing at the time we were this close to the sink commanderinchief of centcom be an anathema of. It went down. It was between the 23 stars, between schwarzkopf who is being the outset by the army three more admiral and at the time is all about tanker wars and thats all weve been doing, so there is no thought. We had no oil plan, contingencies you can imagine. There is no 1021. 1021 was all about the union. The thought of a ground war at this time, even to a colonel was unbelievably remote. My question is to ambassador trant divan and general house. And that is, are you buying the koolaid this man is dishing out . You reminded us at the very beginning of his talk about George Herbert walker bush been a prudent, careful, cautious political leader. And then he tells as that he had a vision for a new world oil. He was ready to risk an enormous amount because he saw the stakes and is so much bigger than Saddam Hussein. General house . Didnt we expect Saddam Hussein hussein but were casualties . Can you believe were ready to throw the dice. That ambassador napper misunderstanding the man for whom this library is respected . Go ahead, sir. [laughter] can i interject if i may . We should let the koolaid vendor defend himself. I just want to point out if only one of the three of us agrees on this panel, im still batting. 333 enacted into the hall of fame. [laughter] i guess im at least partly persuaded by the argument. I do think notwithstanding president bushs reputation for person that he also did have a Broader Vision about the way he wanted the world to look after his administration. And i do think the iraqi use of the crisis for us to accomplish its objectives sort of violated that notion about the postcold war world might look like. So i do think there are other object is. They were very much concerned about saudi arabia. That was a huge stake is seen to be called into question by the invasion. Im not so sure they would have been so sanguine about Saddam Hussein controlling the percentage of the worlds oil supply. It might make a difference who controlled that particular spigot. Im also persuaded by the argument that president bush was concerned that this set of events that completely unraveled and impossible to validate everything hed invested wont be reconsidered his relationship , but after matzo had come to invest something in this relationship. To once and for all and the cold war. There were many object to seesaw and the diplomacy of the first persian gulf war. But i am at least persuaded that part of his calculation was something had to come out of this that would mean a better world in the long run. He had to have a way to answer that News Conference question, what comes next. Next is an International Coalition working together against advice and divisions that would be strong enough, durable enough to turn the direction and a critical juncture. Sir, the context is that you lose after you know what happened was after we had gotten out of vietnam, we had been involved in an island fight that was the notch and then we have been involved in just cause taking down noriega in panama. When i got to the polls with nine per gauge and 90, all we knew we were going to defend saudi arabia. As a matter of fact, we started plans to sell a campsite have in germany. I saw the one time and all this is going on in washington, i never saw a tv or listen to radio. Im in the desert. No one had been there since jesus christ. There is no cameras, no nothing where we were. No roads, no trials and i could see you sitting there like we had in europe forever. So we started playing up plan to build ranges. So you just kind of had to understand the context at my level of where we were. After vietnam, after two tours of vietnam, i lived through 20 years of how bad it was to be a soldier because weve done these terrible things and be at on. The only thing i knew was when we went to the gulf war, we were so good in the reagan dollars m. But it happened to americas military after vietnam, i remember being nice after the war by several think tank groups they came in to talk to me, they says, was about fratricide. Did you worry about where the enemy was . Genome where the the enemy was . I said i didnt care. I like to know what the friendlys for because they knew they could eat any enemy we ran into. The context at the time had so been lots of where we where and what was going on at Different Levels and never seen any of these briefings. You know, never seen a toter, november we didnt really know we were going to attack iraq until sometime in december. All of our plans for defense says. We were defending saudi arabia and weston until sometime in december that we started working for schwarzkopfs level, you know, Colin Powells level. You know, they were into offensive were planning, but not at my level. So i dont know if his streak in the or just not quite understanding what was going on. When you are a colonel commentary tradition with his son and the president of the United States nine. I just ran off guard and ran off down. [laughter] im going to except both of those insipid endorsements. Spare, your question. Dr. Engel, i want your thoughts on the military revolution of affairs. I see little but as the koolaid and that maybe president bush wanted to maintain order and stability, whereas in tiananmen square, there was no real danger to the outside reaching a few of. So given that, i am skeptical of the revolution in military affairs. So not even a colonel ive been grounded in army. Dream such that i see interest capabilities. So the communication capabilities certainly would end this conflict astronomical in the advance and im sure general house can speak to that. I was wondering what your thoughts are with respect to the pole for planning for the and from the beginning and whether or not you think this is a revolution in military affairs. No, actually i dont. For two reasons. The first is we have a lot of memories as i mentioned before, memories are bad, terrible things. If i asked most of you which you have for lunch of it. If i ask you which he signed tv 22 years ago, you remember which he sought over the last 22 years, what not which he sought 22 years ago. Along Television Screens was remarkable images of hitting exactly what we wanted. Two points about this important remember. The first is thats quite impressive and something that is clearly the enemy didnt have. The second two points are to buy the pentagon didnt show you any video of things that miss. That is bad pr. And the percentage of weapons that were smart weapons in the first gulf war but infinitely more than anything the iraqis had was remarkably small compared to the impression the pentagon gave them a military briefing for the alicia pictures of smart bombs and smart missiles and things fly into windows. That was the percentage actually expended. So i dont think this is a revolution in military affairs so much as a vivid demonstration of just how proficient the United States was in waging war, especially can do this proficient adversary. But it also is a military affairs in a fundamentalist about is the car still has a boat here and the ultimate goal of the conflict was a political goal and therefore the military plan made that involve smart and weapons were designed with a traditional military conclusion, which in truth is not revolutionary at all, getting the enemy to do what she wanted. I cant see it as fares. And getting assigned from the back right of time, but i do want to give yet, let randy comment. The revolutionary military affairs was something that, at the time goldwaternichols had been passed to try to join up by the military and the results of his top about back in the 80s. It is this revolution in military affairs and what it meant to me was finally after coming out of the nonwe have had real tinkerers in the military as a devoted to to wage war at a higher lethality level, using all the tools in the toolbox. I mean, when someone says fight you have for air force says, because we need them. The marines have been air force, army and air force, navy has been air force. The air force has been air force. But when youre at war planner or fighting commie tiptoes senator toolbox and it was wonderful i thought what we had received from the american taxpayers for these unbelievable tools. To start weapons would still be understood and everything. All that was there is a combination of hardware and a combination of training that occurred since the vietnam war, all the things that went in voice headteacher worry about the enemy . I said i just worried about my buddies. I didnt want to shoot my own guys. Lets take one more question. Professor parker. [inaudible] bushs policy is governed and the precedent will be set for a postcold war world. One of the earlier threats was the question of wmds. They do show up on the battlefield is at least a possibility. I was in south france at the Time Beginning to study abroad. They actually had missiles he had failed to. Turns out not to be the case. I guess my question is, do these crop up since the war starts and, other things about the Bush Administration wishes to set precedents. In other words, once theyre in the conversation, and this is some 10 minutes looked at as well as a way to set the postworld war was not even through the were enemies . Thats a very good question. The answer is yes and no. Let me give you the note first. And quite certain id like to hear your thoughts. These concerns, maybe even nuclear concerns are clearly concerns on the battlefield, at the highest level, secretary of state president ial level, george bush did not seem to be too concerned about keeping iraq from using wmds as a way to remind others not to do them with one exception. President bush voter letter to Saddam Hussein on the eve of the warfare. This is rather unusual. Secretary of state baker who met with tariq aziz in geneva. Ssml is your terms, if you use Nuclear Weapons or if theres attack against any american ally anywhere in the entire world, we are going to presume you did it the we are going to respond with Nuclear Weapons. They use phrases such as fully as the fullest measure of our arms. Not so much setting a precedent, but telling enemy leader just before the conflict begins but heres the front lines was explicitly done by the Bush Administration. It came in as a surprise to the International Community just how far along Saddam Hussein was in this Nuclear Program once the inspectors again have access to iraq following the gulf war. So while it may not have been first and foremost in the mind of planners before the invasion, is significant fixation of the International Community later that he had achieved a march towards Nuclear Weapons and nobody new much about at the time. With dean standing there, having to figure out how to answer this click, as a Brigade Commander i was convinced we were going to be fine, that they were going to hit us with chemical weapons, but we were so welltrained the only thing we really needed was more water to cope with the chemicals we had with this to cleanse their tanks and personnel carriers and everything put lisa we could get back into the fight. So we ended up getting 5000 japanese water tracks part of the formation and we trained and trained on how to decontaminate from chemicals we knew we were going to have. The gulf war lasted 96 hours. I thought for 36 days. I was trying to convince iraqis that the wadi albertine was the gap of the region and in the Main Coalition attack would, and hook into kuwait. They put the syrians to my right. My right flank with the Syrian Forces that had the same tanks that saddam had, which was always kind of interesting. So for 30 days and running with dozens of soldiers, trying to elicit a response and clearing the mines in going to fire trenches and try to make it look like the Main Coalition attack would come right up in the society than in 17th and 18th court to the west is where scott didnt want saddams folks to see that, so they kept running my prepaid up the wadi and every time we read bob three, which is everything on better gas masks. We had rubber booties, suits, gloves and mask out of the carriers ready to put them on because we knew we were going to get fined one of these times. It just never happened. So as diplomatic moves the latter talked about nukes, maybe the interpreter that should be butternut fineness because they had released so anybody over there who are threatening could have retaliated with chemical weapons. So theres so many bubbles. This is for all you cadets here, thank you for coming because the levels of interaction just today has just been unbelievable. What the president was thinking about doing all these Different Levels and i was just out there at the end. Just tell me what to do, bias. I will jump in as the boss. [laughter] and i say thank you are a match to dr. Engel. [applause] i happened to be on the trippi saw highly didnt deal with the president and mrs. Bush went to saudi arabia to see the troops before the ground war started. The white house staff is trained to use gas masks and put on clothing, so we were concerned about the use of chemicals in very bad things. With that, arafat has some very good things if you would please join us outside, we have refreshment to know the chance to buy the book and have it autographed by the author or the editor and the thank you are coming. Were proud of the bush school of them to be part of the texas a m university. Ill leave reminding you all think that texas a m center around x once, integrity, leadership, loyalty, respect and sauces service and are all personified in george w. Bush and were fortunate to be the bush school of texas a m. Thank you. [applause] [inaudible conversations]. Are you who look, there is no business cutting across the board. You try to search for the things that have the least adverse effects on productivity. Second, youre cutting those areas where you need to invest in the structure. That is so stupid. Yet, it sounds like when you think that when the sequester kickstand, that may be a window to do something big. Tell us what is going to happen on march 1 when the sequester kickstand, and why do you think that might be a chance to do something . When you guys see what happens, you guys are going to be upset, and so will everyone else. They will come back and say we are sick of this lets do something smart, lets try to Work Together and fix this debt. The senate this Week Featured some of booktvs weekend programs. In an hour, fred kaplan on general david atrios and his advisers and how they change u. S. Military strategy in his book, the insurgents. Then Jeffrey Engel looking back at the gulf war. Secretary john f. Kerry and his speech as the new secretary. The council of Foreign Relations on a country of iraq and afghanistan. It has now become a capitalist situation. In china, they capitalize on this. As i said, its all about preserving the power is the contrary continues to grow. They threw aside the vestiges of communism a long time ago. In north korea, it is all about preserving of the m