Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Richard Lugar Senator Seeks to Educate America About World Issues by John Shaw Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) is determined to help the American people better understand the complex array of opportunities, challenges and risks that now confront the nation. In an interview in his office in the Senate Hart Office Building, Lugar said he is going to use the early months of his chairmanship of the foreign relations panel to hold hearings on important issues such as the U.S. policy on Iraq, Afghanistan and North Korea. Additionally, Lugar said he wants his committee to examine the daunting problem of the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, the state of the American diplomatic corps, the security of U.S. embassies and, possibly, the Bush administrationís new policy of pre-emption. "It will be an important educational experience for the committee and for the public," Lugar said. "The purp ose of these hearings is not to be adversarial Ö in which we say, ëGot youóyou havenít been doing enoughí to the administration. Maybe we all havenít been doing enough to energize our diplomacy." Now 70, Lugar has been a congressional leader in international affairs for several decades. Lugarís office library is packed with volumes on foreign policy and history, and he acknowledges that few things stimulate his intellectual interests more than a good briefing on foreign policy or intelligence matters. Lugar is a former mayor of Indianapolis who was first elected to the Senate in 1976. A loyal Republican, Lugar also has a decidedly independent streak that has led him to challenge the policies of Republican and Democratic administrations. He served as an influential chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee in the mid-1980s, where he persuaded a very reluctant President Ronald Reagan to back the ouster of Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos after Marcos claimed victory in fraudulent elections. He later worked with congressional Democratsóand against Reaganóto pass legislation imposing sanctions on South Africa because of its apartheid policies. Lugar lost his prized foreign relations chairmanship when Democrats won control of the Senate in 1986, and he then became the second-ranking Republican on the panel in subsequent years when Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) asserted his seniority over Lugar. Helms chaired the committee from 1995 to 2001. During that time, Helms and Lugar often differed on issues ranging from economic sanctions to American dues to the United Nations. Lugar chaired the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee from 1995 to 2001 and was the author of a sweeping and controversial free market U.S. agricultural reform program that has since been partly overturned. And for more than 40 years, Lugar has run a 600-acre corn, soybean and timber farm in Indiana. Not surprisingly, Lugar said one of the first matters his panel will explore in 2003 is U.S. policy toward Iraq. Lugar has taken a relatively hard line toward Iraq since it invaded Kuwait in 1990. He was a strong supporter of the Persian Gulf War in 1991 and urged the first President Bush to take the necessary steps to oust Saddam Hussein from power. Since then, he has urged several administrations to adopt a firm policy toward Iraq. Lugar worked closely last year with Sen. Joseph Biden (D-Del.), then the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, on a series of hearings regarding the United Statesís Iraq policy. The hearings focused on the threats posed by Husseinís regime, ways to ease those threats, and the challenges that would be created by a post-Hussein Iraq. Lugar and Biden worked together on a congressional Iraq resolution that was narrower and more focused on working through the United Nations than many in the White House initially wanted. Lugar also voted for the final resolution authorizing U.S. military force, if necessary, to disarm Iraq. He praised the Bush administration for shifting its original unilateralist stance on Iraq to a more multilateral approach. "There has been some very robust diplomacy on the part of the administration regarding Iraq. They have visited with more than 50 countries about their ideas on Iraq and the region," Lugar said. "This has been a very important opportunity to find out where a large number of nations are on many issues." Lugar said the Bush administrationís policy on Iraq is clear and is one he endorses. "Saddam must cough up his weapons of mass destruction or face the end of his regime." He said the White House, after a slow start, has begun to think seriously about what an Iraq without Hussein would look like. He noted that officials have discussed as possible models the U.S.-led efforts to rebuild Japan and Germany after World War II. "This is at least the beginning of a concept about how to deal with this. We will need a very good plan from the outset," he said. Lugar added that the Senate Foreign Relations Committee will press the administration to spell out its long-term vision of Iraq and discuss the likely length, costs and demands of a possible U.S. occupation of that nation. He also wants the committee to help create a plan for rebuilding Iraq in the event of a war and to draft congressional legislation authorizing funds for possible reconstruction efforts. "Itís important to have a public airing of where this effort stands," Lugar said. "The purpose of the hearings is not to create some phobia about how hard this is going to be to succeed in Iraq. As a friend of the family, we can hopefully make some positive suggestions." Lugar said Iraq is a significant challenge but hardly the only one the United States faces. "Iraq is a serious problem, but it is one proliferation problem among many. We must pursue the containment and elimination of weapons of mass destruction with the same intensity that has characterized our debate with Iraq," he said. Lugar argues that the pre-eminent U.S. foreign policy challengeóand the chief global security threatóis the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and their availability to hostile nations and terrorist states. The senator has developed what he calls the Lugar Doctrine to underscore the perils of these weapons. It asserts that the United States should use all of its military, diplomatic and economic power to ensure that WMD everywhere are accounted for and secured. Additionally, it says the United States should encourage democratic institutions across the world and decrease dependence on foreign energy sources. Lugar said he believes the global war on terrorism should relentlessly focus on WMD. He warns that the world is gushing with nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, as well as materials of mass destruction that are stored principally in the United States and Russia but also in India, Pakistan, Iraq, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Syria, Sudan, Israel, Great Britain, France, China and perhaps other nations. Lugar said that in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks, terrorists have demonstrated suicidal tendencies that are beyond deterrence. "We must keep the worldís most dangerous technologies out of the hands of the worldís most dangerous people," he said. "We must anticipate that they will use weapons of mass destruction if allowed the opportunity. The minimum standard for victory in this war is the prevention of any of the individual terrorists or terrorist cells from obtaining weapons or materials of mass destruction. We must make sure WMD are identified, guarded and systematically destroyed." Lugar said every nation that has WMD should account for what it has, spend its own money or obtain international technical and financial resources to safely secure its arsenal, and pledge that no other nation, cell or cause will be allowed access to that arsenal. Lugar, teaming up with former Sen. Sam Nunn (D-Ga.), developed a cooperative threat reduction program that was enacted by Congress in 1991 to secure and dismantle the massive nuclear, chemical and biological weapons infrastructure in the former Soviet Union. The Nunn-Lugar program has won international praise and helped secure both senators nominations for a Noble Peace Prize. Since 1991, the $400 million-per-year Nunn-Lugar program has deactivated more than 6,000 nuclear warheads from the former Soviet Union. Additionally, more than 22,00 scientists previously employed in WMD programs in the former Soviet U nion have been given work in cooperative, peaceful projects. The program also facilitated the transfer of all nuclear weapons out of the Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Belarus, which once possessed the third, fourth, and eighth largest nuclear arsenals in the world, respectively. Lugar was encouraged last year when leaders of the Group of Eight nations agreed to launch a global partnership against the spread of weapons and materials of mass destruction. The goal is to boost global efforts to eliminate the threat posed by proliferation of WMD from former Soviet Union states. Under the agreement, the United States has pledged to spend $10 billion and other states will match that figure over the next 10 years. The focus will be on nonproliferation, disarmament, counterterrorism, nuclear safety and environmental protection programs. "This is a good initiative, but it will only be successful if the United States provides the leadership," Lugar noted. Currently, there are no Nunn-Lugar programs for nonproliferation beyond the former Soviet Union, but the senator said he would like to expand the program to trouble spots such as India and Pakistan. The senator acknowledges that it is not possible to replicate the program everywhere, but added that itís important to ensure a basic level of accountability, transparency and safety in every nation that possesses WMD. Lugar said there remains a broad agenda on WMD, including expansion of the Nunn-Lugar program outside the former Soviet Union, accelerated efforts to begin destroying chemical and biological weapons in Russia, and continued elimination of Russian nuclear weapons. Deeply involved in addressing the threats of terrorism and WMD, Lugar is also active in other international issues. He has been pleading with the Bush administration to look more closely at the travails of Latin America. Lugar said the White House must pay "first-class attention" to the problems ravaging Argentina, Brazil, Venezuela and other nations in the region, and said the array of problems destabilizing Latin America is "going to require some heavy lifting" on the part of the United States. He called on the White House to name a special envoyóa "big leaguer"óto coordinate U.S. economic and political programs for Latin America. "We have not had the intensity of focus. Secretary [of State Colin] Powell canít do everything simultaneously," he said. The senator is also interested in probing the Bush administrationís new pre-emptive national security policy. The 33-page National Security Strategy document discusses the importance of economic growth, global development, the consolidation of democracy, and the urgent need to tackle the HIV/AIDS crisis. But it has attracted the most attention for its unabashed expressions of American exceptionalism, its pledge to ensure that the United States remains the worldís most militarily powerful nation, and its aggressive advocacy of the doctrine of pre-emption. "I donít think we have it down. We need to have a little more confidence about what weíre saying. Part of what weíre saying is we have a different world, but not everyone understands the policy," Lugar said. "We have to formalize this in a way in which everyone understands these rules of the game." John Shaw is a contributing writer to The Washington Diplomat.