[EKHO MOSKVY RADIO, 14:00, SEPTEMBER 11, 2003] SOURCE: FEDERAL NEWS SERVICE (http://www.fednews.ru/)
Anchor: It is 14:07 Moscow time and I am Andrei Norkin on Ekho Moskvy. Welcome everyone. And our first guest today is the President of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev.
Mikhail Sergeyevich, welcome and thank you for coming.
Gorbachev: Good day.
Anchor: We have already a lot of questions for you on the Internet and I hope that questions will continue to come in to our pager 961-2222 for Ekho Moskvy. We will be in conversation with Mikhail Sergeyevich until 14:45 with a short break for news. So, send in your questions.
And I would like to start the conversation with the date today. Mikhail Sergeyevich, when it all happened in America two years ago, after a few hours or perhaps a couple of days, everyone shaped his own idea of how the world situation would develop. I would like to know what your ideas were and to what extent have your expectations been proved right.
Gorbachev: Yes, I was sitting in front of my television for several hours and I saw -- I saw the second attack. I was told that something strange was happening. I stayed up until 4 a.m. Two or three hours later I issued a statement and sent a telegram to President Bush.
At the time I felt that it was a challenge, a real aggressive step, a brazen action and it was very important in the situation, when such a tragedy had occurred in the eyes of the whole world, with the whole world watching, to keep a cool head, not to become prey to confusion and -- to act.
I think these appeals and the support and involvement of many countries and people to some extent saved the Americans. To them it was a shock. They have still not quite lived it down. Anyway, whether I am in Moscow, in Washington and in America one can feel it, this has left an imprint. It marks the start of a new era for them. Before September 11 they felt that they were invulnerable and that made an imprint on all their life. This is no longer the case.
And look, they have taken unprecedented internal security measures. I will say a few words about external security measures a bit later. No events of a comparable scale have occurred on the territory of the US. So, the results are there when the whole society and the state takes resolute measures and exhibits restraint and confidence.
In general, the Americans, having lived through this tragedy have drawn a lesson and it serves them in good stead now. The tight controls that they have established is doing them very well.
Anchor: And the external aspect --
Gorbachev: As for the external aspect, I said at the time that of course people and nations would be in solidarity with the Americans. They would support them morally. And it is important, I think, that cooperation in resisting the actions of international terrorism -- and they are designed to undermine the process of movement and the search for a new world order after the Cold War -- this process was proceeding with difficulty even before those events.
And I think that one of the key results then was that within days there emerged a striving, a political will of many political leaders and this solidarity led to a real and not token anti-terrorist coalition and there emerged support for the United States and a wish to repel the attacks, to stop international terrorism. It has been reflected in the activities of the Security Council. The Security Council was in session non-stop. And in fact everything that was happening was legitimate, it created a legal framework, an international framework because the Security Council is entitled under the Charter to lead the way in such cases.
Anchor: You speak about legitimacy, but the US Administration has picked up a lot of criticism over its decision to use military force in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Gorbachev: Let me continue. Things, as always, are not that simple.
I think it is important to stress that those who say, especially Americans and especially members of the ruling elite in America, that the UN has outlived itself and that the Security Council is effete and so on -- well, this is not so. These systems of maintaining security, although they were set up at a very different time, need to be adapted and to be reformed. But if there is the political will, they can be effective. And the fact that the Americans had the support of nations, the coalition that included people and states that previously were anything but admirers of the United States, perhaps the opposite, they found themselves to be members of the coalition. And this made it possible to deliver a strike at the infrastructure of international terrorism and that infrastructure was concentrated in Afghanistan.
So, I think that the part of the action designed to destroy the infrastructure and strike at international terrorism is justified. Of course, when we look at Afghanistan, that long-suffering country that has been at war until the troops were withdrawn but was then again dragged into a civil war because of the claims of the Taliban to implement their vision and their project. That again led to casualties and devastation and so on. Most importantly, all the terrorist bases were concentrated there.
That provides justification, but on the other hand, it spells new trials for Afghanistan. And still, the creation of the administration and the support of the world community defused the tensions after decades of continuous war in Afghanistan. I don't think a better option can be found, speaking about the concrete situation and context.
But even at that time I said and this refers to the general view of the problem, the fight against terrorism and specifically Afghanistan, if we continue to think that war is necessary and that military methods should be used, we are mistaken. As long as the world has so much poverty and backwardness, terrorists -- and they are a special breed of people. They are people with a certain vision and with a certain mindset.
Anchor: Well, we don't have to discuss that today.
Gorbachev: OK. Just to save time.
Anchor: Yes, to save time.
Gorbachev: But because poverty in the world is so widespread, half of the people live on 1-2 dollars a day. Children don't go to school, suffer from sickness and die. Disease is rampant. There is no drinking water. Two million people in these regions have no access to drinking water. In short, appalling conditions. This is not life, this is survival. So, of course, it is easy to recruit --
Anchor: Yes, obviously, it becomes very easy.
Gorbachev: Very easy. But I must add one more thing regarding what has changed in the world. Whatever you say, there is more solidarity. Russian support for the Americans at the time reached a very high level. The fact that the American leadership launched a war against Iraq without a mandate from the United Nations, and with almost half of American opposed to the war, although they supported the President, they were against the war, not to speak about Russia, Europe and the whole world. And if they neglected public opinion which by the way made it possible to solve many issues with the support of public opinion led to dire consequences and I will later draw a short conclusion from that.
The situation now is that the euphoria in support of the Americans has been replaced with anti-Americanism in many countries. And even our opinion surveys in Russia -- although I think President Putin has done a lot together with German and French leadership, without breaking a dialogue and political exchanges with the president American administration -- at the same time, they managed to get across their point of view and give advice and call for cooperation without going to extremes. It did not work out and as a result, as I have said, if anyone thinks that Iraq is a victory and when there was a lot of ballyhoo I said at the time that it would be odd if America had lost the war against Iraq. Otherwise, why have they been spending 300-odd billion dollars a year if they can't cope with such a problem.
This is obvious. But things are only starting. First, there are killings; second, the system of life support in Iraq is broken down -- no water, no electricity, no food, total disarray. And now Americans are again thinking about the United Nations, they are ready to tolerate a new peacekeeping force entering under the aegis of the United Nations and so on. However, they continue to act from a position of strength.
I think in this case we should support the participation of the United Nations in the reconstruction of Iraq. It seems to be everyone's concern. Those who think that the Americans have started it all and they have to clear up the mess alone are mistaken. We all will have to clear up the mess. It only seems so, but in general everything is interconnected.
So, what we hoped for has not materialized. The united force and the pooling of efforts will play its part not only in combating terrorism, but will advance us towards a different kind of cooperation, a different level of effectiveness in the activities of international security institutions and so on -- this has not materialized. ....
(Lots of stuff about Russia's domestic affairs)
Anchor: Thank you very much Mikhail Sergeyevich for coming. We have even taken a little more than our allotted time.
Gorbachev: We can continue the discussion if you invite us.
Anchor: OK.
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