Zbigniew Brzezinski
By David T. Cook
Zbigniew Brzezinski, a counselor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington and national security adviser to President Carter, was Tuesday's guest. Here are excerpts from his remarks:
On what troubles him most about us policy in Iraq:
"We are in the process of alienating not only much of the Muslim world .. [but also] we are alienating most of our friends."
On the conduct of the US occupation of Iraq:
"What we are seeing ... is, unfortunately, a gradual spread of the view among the Iraqis that they are dealing with an assertive, ham-handed occupation that's ... humiliating them and increasingly oppressing them. And, therefore, I expect the violence to rise up."
On the link between Iraq and US Middle East policy:
"If we want to deal with Iraq, we have to deal with the Israeli -Palestinian problem at the same time. There is no extrication from Iraq with the Palestinian-Israeli conflict going on."
On the need for reform of US intelligence activities:
"We are dealing with a porous, primitive regime and ... with primitive, clandestine terrorist groups, and we are totally uninformed.... We badly need a decent, competitive, highly professional, clandestine service that is able to penetrate regimes such as Iraq's."
On the behavior of some 9/11 commissioners:
"I am just amazed at the way this commission has been permitted to just flood the talk shows.... It is beginning to look like a partisan exercise."
An expanded report is available at:
http://blogs.csmonitor.com/cooks_capitol/
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