Seymour Hersh: U.S. debates move on Iraq

Seymour Hersh

(CNN) -- There has been speculation in Washington that the United States, after finishing military operations in Afghanistan, may turn its attention to longtime nemesis Iraq and its leader, Saddam Hussein.

Investigative reporter Seymour Hersh writes in the latest issue of The New Yorker that there's intense debate within the White House about whether to pursue military action against Iraq. An Iraqi opposition leader reportedly submitted a plan of attack to the Bush administration, modeled on the U.S. military strategy deployed in Afghanistan, Hersh writes.

CNN's Paula Zahn discussed the New Yorker report with Hersh on Monday.

PAULA ZAHN: So what is it that Iraqi opposition leader, Ahmad Chalabi, has in mind here?

SEYMOUR HERSH: He's got something new, which is interesting. One of the new facts is that he wants to come in from Iran. Iran has given him permission -- this is an Iraqi dissident -- to come, stage his forces in Iran, go across the border into southern Iraq, and set up camp there. And that's a very big step. That hasn't happened before.

This man has been trying with his opposition group -- I think since '93 or so -- with the help of the CIA and the Clinton administration, their money, to get it going. And now he has got an access route, which is from Iran, and he's also got the model.

...So what he wants to do is go across with his people from Iran into Iraq, set up a base, have the United States declare him the provisional government of Iraq -- recognize him. We send some special forces in there, we begin bombing, we tell Saddam, 'Come on south' -- you know, Saddam is up north in Baghdad -- 'send your tanks south to come get us in southern Iraq,' where he (Chalabi) would be. And of course, if Saddam did that, as I quote somebody as saying, 'Our planes would take care of his tanks. They'd be toast.'

But the problem still is -- and this is what the story is about, really -- what's going to happen if that works? It probably can work. It looks like we can certainly give Saddam a lot of trouble by doing so. But what happens to that country? Who is going to take it over? And that's the issue.

ZAHN: Well, let's come back to the plan and the criticism of it. Aren't there a lot of people within the administration who simply don't think Ahmad Chalabi can pull this off?

HERSH: Oh, absolutely. But I have to tell you, they also believe that you could do something about Saddam with special forces. Our special forces worked very well, particularly the Delta Force ... when we attacked Saddam in the Gulf War.

And so, we know we can do it. ... We can just do it ourselves if we found somebody to lead, but we don't have people inside. We don't have the intelligence we need. We really have very little out of Iraq. I quote one CIA person as saying, 'Even back then in the early '90s we had nothing.' I don't think we have much now.

And secondly, the fear is if you do overthrow Saddam, you get three countries. You know, you get a Shiite -- an Arab Shiite -- country in the south, where most of the people in the south are against the regime. They set up a separate government around Basra. You have a middle regime, where the tribes that Saddam gets support from fight each other. And in the north, of course, the Kurds take over, and nobody wants that, too. That's chaos.

And also, none of our allies wants us to go, and they want things left the way they are.

ZAHN: Come back to the other piece of the puzzle here -- the role Iran would play. Effectively, would that be the end of dual containment, if we're suddenly trusting the Iranians to help this Iraqi opposition leader pull this off?

HERSH: They're our new buddies. They helped in Afghanistan, and certainly, they are more moderate. The only problem with the moderate side of Iran is, of course, there's also another side, which is the mullahs -- the fundamentalists -- who still run Iran, still support terrorism -- particularly against Israel. And as I wrote a few weeks ago, they're making a nuclear bomb, and we don't know what quite to do about that. They've been digging holes, putting their bombs lower and deeper.

So that's another issue. Do we really want Iran to be involved in an overthrow of Iraq? And again, I have to stress this: Chalabi has a lot of support -- political support -- and this administration is interested in what the conservatives think. ... Very powerful members want Chalabi to be put in play. So it's a political issue for this government, too.

ZAHN: Realistically: Politically, how soon could this happen if you build this political consensus? What are we talking about here?

HERSH: Oh, I think first of all, it's very clear that (Secretary of State) Colin Powell and his deputy, Richard Armitage, are very much against this and fighting it very hard. And I think what's going to happen is more of the same. We're going to continue. As you know, we fly -- we attack in the no-fly zone in north and south Iraq. We set up zones, which they're not allowed to do any military activity in, and we bomb if we see something.

I think we'll just do more of the same for the next four or five or six months, as the administration struggles with what to do, if anything, about Iraq. And don't forget, the Saudis, the Syrians and all of Europe have told us: Stay out of it. So it's a very interesting issue, because it's a question of politics versus reality.