Radio Workshop

Interview with James Fallows (Transcript)

by Gretchen Wilson

James Fallows - The piece I did in the November issue of The Atlantic last Fall about what happens after we win in Iraq, was in one way part of the chronic problem for a monthly magazine of how to sort of get ahead of breaking news, because with a six week lead time we can't really write about, you know, things that are going to dramatically change in the meantime. But we thought that probably there would not be an actual war in Iraq by the time this article came out, and we were gambling in a sort of pessimistic way that the press probably wouldn't get around to asking to asking what happens after a war takes place, because they'd be so preoccupied with the active politics of the moment. I say that's pessimistic because it would probably be better for the public if the press were more involved in all the aspects of the probelm.

So I started the project not really knowing much about Iraq at all. And I tried to put together a roster of people who had specific in Iraq, with Iraq's neighbors in the Middle East. But more generally people who had been involved in post-war scenarios, generally - scholars of the occupation of Germany and Japan, people who had been involved in those occupations and were still around, soldiers who had administered in defeated Kosovo, in Somalia, you name it. And what was interesting was that at the time I was doing this reporting which was August, September of last year, those people too were just starting to focus on what would it would mean after the war took place. And I could see during the course of the interview, most of them were saying: "Gee, when I start thinking about all the complications, I - now speaking as the interviewee - have become much less enthusiastic about undertaking this because if we have to do it, we have to do it, but, boy, there's going to be a lot of chain of consequences."

Gretchen Wilson - What do you think of having this time - of nearly a year of kind of preparation in the public discourse or in the media - has done to shape public opinion about the war?

JF - One thing I'll say is that in a sense, we've been preparing even longer than that. I was interviewing immediately after the Sept. 11 attacks, I was interviewing some of the administration officials and even then, two and three days after the attacks, they were saying this is going to lead us to Iraq. You know, they didn't know whether there'd be any connection between the attacks and Iraq, but there was this sort of longstanding policy, so from the administration's point of view, there's been a year and a half of saying you know this has to take us back to Saddam Hussein.

I think the debate we've been through, in the press, in the political system, in the explanations from the President and just, sort of, conversations around the country, will not go down as a great historical moment in American intellectual performance. My sense is that there's been a breakdown in the political system itself. I think there is genuine division within the country about the wisdom of going to war, but that division in opinion is not reflected in the political system at all. The Democrats, for reasons that I think were crass and shortsighted, decided not to engage the President last fall on these war resolutions , the administration has not done the best job of making its case and the most viable debate has happened within the press. So you can say the press, especially within the last two or three months, has been doing part of the job it should of making the case, pro and con.

GW - Has that surprised you?

JF - Uh, that's a hard question. Well, it's surprising to me that the political system has worked as poorly as it has. And I think there is an ancient lesson of Vietnam involved here. I think the whole build up to Vietnam was conditioned by the fact that influential people knew they weren't going to be affected by that war, because of the college deferments, draft, that is all the more so now. Most Americans realize this war is not going to affect them unless it brings some kind of counter terrorist attack within the U.S. So I think that accounts for some of the lack of seriousness in the public. You could be surprised in a more positive way that the last while, I think the press has begun to sort of rouse itself and at least begin to examine some of the pro and con issues.

For the nation as a whole, it's been an anxious time since the Sept. 11 attacks, of course, most of all in New York City, but it really hasn't been a dramatic change in our lives, you know, we're not being mobilized or rationed or anything. For the active duty military and for the National Guard and Reserve, this has been wartime footing since Sept. 12 of last year. The Guard and Reserve have been sort of pulled out of their jobs and you cannot resign from either the Marine Corps or the Army right now, there's been this sort of "Stop Loss" policy, so that I think is not good for democracy. Also, it struck me, when doing this piece for The Atlantic, was that the main peace party in the U.S. was the active duty military. They're the ones saying: "Let's think about this. Yeah, we're going to win the actual battle, but what about a week later, a month later, a year later... What are we going to be in charge of?"