#10
Omaha World-Herald
March 14, 2002
Don't be reckless, Gorbachev tells U.S.
BY STEPHEN BUTTRY
WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER

In an emotional visit to Ground Zero on Monday, Mikhail Gorbachev noted the many nationalities of the people who died at the World Trade Center.

"The workers there represented practically the entire world," Gorbachev said Wednesday in an interview before the first of two Nebraska speeches.

Photographs of the victims of the Sept. 11 attack underscored his belief "that we needed to unite in the face of this kind of attack, this kind of merciless aggression by international terrorists."

The last president of the Soviet Union discussed the war on terrorism and other world issues in a half-hour interview at the Doubletree Hotel in Omaha, with translation by his aide Pavel Palazhchenko.

Gesturing frequently for emphasis, Gorbachev praised the United States for developing international support for the war on terrorism and encouraged Americans to continue working with other nations as the fight proceeds.

"It's important to preserve the unity that emerged out of this," he said. "I think the solidarity helped the American people to go through this trial."

Gorbachev twice visited the World Trade Center when it was a symbol not of tragedy but "of the achievements of America."

Monday's visit, on the six-month anniversary of the attack, "brought back very vividly what happened on Sept. 11," he said.

He had watched on television in his office at the Gorbachev Foundation in Moscow as the plane hit the second tower of the World Trade Center. Gorbachev did not leave his office until 4a.m., almost 10 hours after the attack. "It was something incredible and unreal, like a Hollywood movie, and it was a shock."

He was especially moved in this week's visit by seeing photographs of children whom the victims left behind. "One could imagine the trauma that these people are living."

While Gorbachev supported the military response against terrorists, he cautioned against "what I call a victory complex, a superiority complex."

In the apparent victory in Afghanistan over Taliban and al-Qaida forces, "The United States played a decisive role, but it was not alone," Gorbachev said. "It would be better to be affected by a different complex, a partnership complex."

He criticized President Bush's characterization of Iraq, Iran and North Korea as an "axis of evil."

"Barbecuing countries and lumping together countries that are so different is not proper policy. It is more like literary rhetoric," Gorbachev said.

He noted that secular leaders in Iran are in a power struggle with the Muslim clerics who have ruled since the late 1970s. "When the Iranians hear that they are part of an 'axis of evil,' this could unite them all in the face of what they would feel is danger."

Gorbachev said Bush's statement might hurt efforts to unite North and South Korea.

Gorbachev urged the United States to continue working through the United Nations to seek inspections to verify that Iraq is not producing weapons of mass destruction.

"Let us not start by bombing, by waging war, by doing battle," he said. "If we go recklessly into war, this could lead to a situation that would go out of control completely."

The war on terrorism must go beyond military battles and attack the root cause, Gorbachev said.

"It is very important to put an end to the situation where half of the population of the world lives in dire poverty. If we think that we can fight poverty with the help of aircraft, tanks, missiles and artillery, that we can defeat terrorism just by waging war, that is wrong."

With end of the arms race, he said, "we released resources that we hoped after the end of the Cold War would be used to fight poverty and backwardness."

Instead, he said, a recent U.N. report showed that "the number of poor people has not diminished. It has actually increased, and the gap between the rich and poor countries has grown significantly."

Gorbachev was disturbed by news reports last weekend that the Pentagon is developing plans for possible nuclear-war scenarios involving Russia and six other nations. He cautioned against reacting too strongly to leaks and partial information, and he said the disclosure could harm relations with other nations.

"On the one hand," Gorbachev said, "the United States and Russia and other nuclear powers demand that other countries don't develop nuclear weapons. The United States wants nonproliferation of nuclear weapons. On the other hand, the United States in this way is brandishing nuclear weapons.

"It smacks of the Cold War again."

BACK TO THE TOP    #197 CONTENTS    NEXT SECTION