Richard G. Lugar, Statesman of the Senate: Crafting Foreign Policy from Capitol Hill

6 The Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan

6 The Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan I Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have dominated American foreign policy for a decade, igniting high-decibel exchanges about their importance to the nation’s security. Richard Lugar has been an active participantinthesedebatesbuthashadonlymarginalinfluenceontheshap ingof warpolicy.Someanalystsandevensomeof hiscolleaguesbelieve he could—and should—have been more aggressive in challenging the Bush administration’s decision to invade Iraq, which diverted attention and resources away from Afghanistan after 2003. To date, the decision to go to war in Iraq has been far more controversialintheUnitedStatesthanthedecisiontoattackAfghanistanafter the September 11 attacks by al-Qaeda. It generated far more passionate debates about the war’s rationale, strategy, and tactics. Between 2003 and2008,policymakersandtheAmericanpubliclargelyforgotAfghanistan , and it was described as America’s “other war.” Lugar consistently thought about and commented on America’s war in Afghanistan, but much of his attention and focus was directed toward Iraq, given its centrality to U.S. policy debates.1 LugarhasahawkishhistoryonIraq.AfterSaddamHusseininvaded Kuwait in 1990, Lugar called for a determined and forceful American response. He was a strong supporter of a congressional resolution in January 1991 that called on President George H. W. Bush to use whatever actions he felt necessary to expel Saddam from Kuwait. But the x The Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan 95 senator went further in the spring of 1991 as the American-led coalition quickly evicted the Iraqis from Kuwait. Lugar urged the president to send American troops into Baghdad to defeat the regime of Saddam Hussein if Saddam refused to surrender. In a letter to Bush on April 18, 1991, Lugar said that Desert Storm clearly established the principle that aggression would not be tolerated and he celebrated the liberation of Kuwait. But he warned that it would be dangerous to leave Hussein in power, asserting that he was capable of causing regional havoc by pushing millions of refugees across his borders into neighboring states. In Lugar’s view, allowing Saddam to stayinpowerwouldresultinthe“creationof onemiserablepredicament after another for the UN and U.S.,” with the result that the alliance and the United States would grow weary and look for withdrawal options and Saddam would rebuild his military strength. He feared Saddam could—and would—outwait the coalition that removed him from Kuwait . Lugar urged Bush to reach out to world leaders and convince them of theneed to depose Saddam. Then thepresident should call on the UN Security Council to pass a resolution that would give Hussein’s regime a deadline for resignation and surrender to the United Nations military command. That command would take physical custody of Saddam and other key Iraqi military leaders and a temporary UN government would be installed pending Iraqi elections. If Saddam declined to surrender, Lugar said, Bush should seek new authority from the U.S. Congress to remove him from power even if this required a U.S.-led march into Baghdad.2 BushsentLugarathree-paragraphletterafewdayslaterinresponse, thanking him for “sending me that interesting letter.” But Bush quickly said it would be “next to impossible” to get the UN to support Lugar’s plan. The international community, he said, would not back the kind of U.S.-led invasion that Lugar envisioned.3 As the 1990s unfolded with Saddam regularly making mischief in theregion,Lugarneverstoppedbelieving,andoccasionallysaying,that the Bush administration made a grievous error in not removing Saddam from power in the spring of 1991. Lugar supported the George W. Bush administration’s request for a congressional authorization to send American forces into Afghanistan to destroy al-Qaeda after the Sep- Richard G. Lugar, Statesman of the Senate 96 tember 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. But Lugar’s concern about Iraq also intensified after 9/11. Three months after the attacks, Lugar released a policypaperhecalledtheLugarDoctrine.Init,hesaidtheUnitedStates was in a global war against Muslim religious extremists who wanted to reorder the world by defeating the country and its key allies. “The war proceeds in a world awash with nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and materials of mass destruction stored principally in the United States and Russia but also in India, Pakistan, Iraq, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Syria, Sudan, Israel, Great Britain, France and China—and perhaps other nations,” he declared. “Throughout much of the last decade, vulnerability to the use of weapons of mass destruction has been the number one national security dilemma confronting the United States even as it received scant attention.”4 LugarsaidtheUnitedStatesneededtobevigilantinbattlingterrorists and alsoinensuring thatallweapons and materialsof mass destruction were identified, carefully guarded...