Policy Podcast: Interview of Assistant Secretary for Near Eastern Affairs C. David Welch

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MR. MCCORMACK: Assistant Secretary of State David Welch, thank you for joining us. Normally, we would start off talking about where we are in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process or any other number of issues that fall under your purview, but I’d like to actually spend this time talking about an important anniversary, and that is the 25th anniversary of the bombing of our embassy in Lebanon. It occurred 25 years ago on April 18th.

Talk a little bit about what you were doing on that day. And where were you working in the Department?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY WELCH: I was the desk officer for Lebanon. And for those who are watching, that’s kind of the person on the lower end of the totem pole who writes all the papers for – eventually go to the Secretary of State. That was my job that day. I was at home asleep in Arlington, Virginia. Phone rang, it was a colleague of mine from the Near Eastern Bureau who said, “You better get to the office right away. We just had a horrible tragedy.” You know, and things were a blizzard afterwards. That destruction of our embassy was the single most horrific act against an American diplomatic facility in our history at the time.

Wasn’t that Lebanon wasn’t already a dangerous place, Sean. As you know, it was and in some respects, still is. But that was really – that was a devastating blow.

MR. MCCORMACK: What – tell us a little bit about the aftereffects of this. What – what happened? I know that a number of people lost their lives and a number of people were injured as well.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY WELCH: Yeah.

MR. MCCORMACK: Give us – give us a sense of the scene afterwards.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY WELCH: Well, the scale of this act of terrorism was – I think the first thing that struck everybody – we never had, I mean, to my recollection, a vehicle bomb used against an American diplomatic facility.

MR. MCCORMACK: So what happened? Did they drive a vehicle into --

ASSISTANT SECRETARY WELCH: A terrorist brought a delivery truck right up next to the entrance to the Embassy, something they could never do again today.

MR. MCCORMACK: Right, right.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY WELCH: And a suicide bomber then detonated it. 63 people were killed, including 11 people who were just there, you know, bystanders, visa applicants. The whole front of the building was destroyed, leveled, and most of the loss of life was the personnel who were working in those offices. This was, I think, around lunchtime, slightly thereafter. And, I mean, literally, the building pancaked on them. It was horrible.

Again, you know, Beirut had been dangerous, but – and as you know, there was fighting between Israel and the Palestinians into and including Beirut the summer before. But never had we seen anything like this. And then what happened afterwards completely changed the picture for us, both in Lebanon and outside it, which we can discuss.

MR. MCCORMACK: Let me ask you this. You know, oftentimes, when you’re dealing with – we dealt with crises before and you – right off the bat, you deal with the immediate: gathering information, disseminating it --

ASSISTANT SECRETARY WELCH: Right.

MR. MCCORMACK: -- making sure everybody is informed. But there comes a point where you’re able to step back and assess what has just happened and then think about what the implications --

ASSISTANT SECRETARY WELCH: Yes.

MR. MCCORMACK: -- are for down the road. What was that moment for you?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY WELCH: Well, you know, the first part of your question – I mean, look at what we had to do that day. We didn’t know who was in the building, so, you know, and we didn’t know for many hours thereafter, was so-and-so just missing or were they dead or --

MR. MCCORMACK: Right.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY WELCH: -- were they injured. A lot of time and effort’s put into that, of course, and the rescue that went on thereafter. But then you have to look at what do you do next. You know, the one thing we didn’t do in Lebanon that we have never done is lift the American flag and bug out. There’s been an American Embassy in Lebanon through the worst of times and it’s still there today. Obviously, our security is entirely different. That event led to a program here in the State Department to reassess the security of our facilities against the type of threat we had never faced before, vehicle-borne explosives. And, you know, I mean, this is a devastating bomb, so we had to look at – for buying a new property, how far is the building away from the perimeter.

MR. MCCORMACK: Right.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY WELCH: What are the protective measures out there.

MR. MCCORMACK: Right.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY WELCH: It’s an unfortunately macabre, minor industry ever since.

MR. MCCORMACK: Right, right.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY WELCH: That’s what our diplomats labor with these days, especially in the dangerous posts that we have.

MR. MCCORMACK: Do we know who is responsible for this event?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY WELCH: Absolutely, we do. The responsibility was claimed by a group that, before then, we’ve never heard of. In Arabic, it’s called Jihad Islami, Islamic Jihad. That was a code word for the Hezbollah organization. We now know something about the perpetrators, that and other events there, and they’re connected into the establishment of this group. And it is a reason that they were put on the list of terrorist organizations and remain there today. They killed many Americans. That was their first, most dramatic murder, but not their last.

MR. MCCORMACK: Do we know anything of the specific organizers of the plot? Do we know who was responsible? Did we ever find that out?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY WELCH: Yes and no. And to be honest with you, I have no memory of who might have driven the –

MR. MCCORMACK: Right.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY WELCH: -- the truck, but we got a pretty good idea who their bosses were.

MR. MCCORMACK: And who was that? What were their connections to the Iranians and the Syrians?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY WELCH: Well, this is an organization that’s been supported by Iran, ever since its inception and that support is political and practical. You can’t you know, build a big bomb like that and – or one like – went into our – the Marine barracks later on that year, which killed 241 American soldiers.

MR. MCCORMACK: So this was the first of the series of bombings?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY WELCH: Correct and, you know, a very sophisticated operation, too. You know, there’s a major capability that lies behind that. Hezbollah has done a good job of perfecting this over the years. But initially, they had to have a lot of foreign support.

MR. MCCORMACK: Some of what you describe is eerily similar to some of the scenes we’ve seen in recent years concerning the use of, you know, these vehicle borne explosives, bombings, to try to intimidate, try to change political course. Is Hezbollah or any of these – its associated groups or any of its patrons associated with some of these current acts of violence that you see in Lebanon?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY WELCH: Well, certainly, there’s a demonstration effect. Terrorists are often copycats, so they take a little works – what works. And obviously, they want to – they like spectacle and maximum loss of life. What Hezbollah did that was innovative -- forgive the term -- in this case was a large bomb, vehicle borne, suicide driver. Yes, unfortunately, we’ve seen that imitated by others, probably used by their sponsors in some of these cases, everywhere from Saudi Arabia to Iraq, Pakistan. And, you know, it’s a terrible thing to say, but as our world has become more sophisticated, the terrorists take advantage of those tools of sophistication -- the internet, for example -- and they can show everybody that, here’s how you do it. And that leads to risks where you – we hadn’t expected them before.

MR. MCCORMACK: It’s 25 years later in Lebanon and we’ve both have been there -- you, many, many times. And it’s changed a great deal in those 25 years. It’s gone through a lot. But in some respects, they still face some of the same kinds of challenges – people who will use violence and threat of intimidation to try to -- from the outside, to try to change the course of Lebanese politics. What are we doing currently with the Lebanese Government to try to assist them in just exercising sovereignty in their own state?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY WELCH: Well, Lebanon is a very special place. You know, it had this terrible history in the civil war. The civil war ended in the early ‘90s and they had new political arrangements to kind of compose the country and get up on the right path. Syrian troops were there until the assassination of Rafik Hariri. But that sort of galvanized the Arab world, the international community and Lebanese into demanding their exit and they had to leave. But to this day, I think there’s still their hand, and that of others, meddling in Lebanese affairs. You know, most Lebanese have – I mean, you and I know them well, we’ve been there many times and if you talk to them, they don’t feel like they’re any threat to Syria.

MR. MCCORMACK: Right.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY WELCH: But they sure feel like Syria is a threat to them --

MR. MCCORMACK: Right.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY WELCH: -- so that what we’re trying to do is help and we have many partners in this – say, in Europe, in the region -- help them manage their own affairs, elect a president according to their laws, have a decent economy, use their army to protect their borders. These are all pretty straightforward and obvious things.

But the history of the place has been such that some people who are extremists have taken advantage of the situation and imposed themselves there. The trend now is different. Yes, they have a political crisis, but if you look ahead, I’m pretty optimistic about the future because I think these are strong people. I mean, they had a very troubled past, but they’ve come out of it now. They just need a helping hand a little bit.

MR. MCCORMACK: David Welch, thanks very much for joining us. Maybe next time, we’ll talk about some of the other issues that you deal with (inaudible).

ASSISTANT SECRETARY WELCH: Happy to do so, Sean. Thanks a lot.

MR. MCCORMACK: Great. Thank you.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY WELCH: Thank you.