Amanpour & Co. - May 27, 2024
From March 11, 2024, Queen Rania al Abdullah of Jordan discusses the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Steve Coll explores Saddam Hussein’s actions during the Iraq War in “The Achilles Trap.” Former NBA star Rex Chapman tells his story of recovering from addiction in his book “It’s Hard for Me to Live with Me.”
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00:00This has been a slow motion mass murder of children, five months in the making.
00:14The Muslim holy month of Ramadan begins with still no relief for desperate Gazans or release
00:20for desperate Israeli hostages.
00:22My exclusive conversation with Queen Rania of Jordan.
00:26America's missteps on the road to war in Iraq have been thoroughly picked over.
00:31But what did Saddam Hussein fail to understand about the United States?
00:36Journalist Steve Cole reveals what went on inside Saddam's palaces in his new book,
00:41The Achilles Trap.
00:42And...
00:43I was too proud to talk to anybody and, you know, try to keep up this facade that everything
00:48was going great for me on the outside.
00:50Michel Martin speaks with basketball star and social media phenomenon Rex Chapman about
00:55his new memoir on the struggles he has with mental health.
01:17Amanpour & Company is made possible by the Anderson Family Endowment, Jim Atwood and
01:24Leslie Williams, Candice King Weir, The Family Foundation of Layla and Mickey Strauss, Mark
01:32J. Bleschner, The Philemon M. D'Agostino Foundation, Seton J. Melvin, Charles Rosenblum, Ku and
01:41Patricia Ewan, committed to bridging cultural differences in our communities, Barbara Hope
01:49Zuckerberg.
01:50Additional support provided by these funders and by contributions to your PBS station from
01:56viewers like you.
01:58Thank you.
02:00Welcome to the program, everyone.
02:01I'm Christiane Amanpour in London.
02:04The Muslim holy month of Ramadan begins amid mounting tension in Jerusalem, across the
02:08Middle East and amongst the Muslim population worldwide.
02:12The threat of an Israeli invasion into Rafah is sparking a rift now between Prime Minister
02:16Benjamin Netanyahu and his closest ally, the U.S. President Joe Biden.
02:22President Biden warns such an incursion would cross a red line.
02:26Prime Minister Netanyahu responds that his red line means preventing another October
02:307th.
02:31And he's again flatly rejected President Biden's call for a two-state solution.
02:36Israeli officials say an offensive into Rafah is not imminent, but neither has it been ruled
02:40out.
02:41More than a million internally displaced Palestinians are sheltering in Rafah.
02:46Food scarcity is bad there, but even worse in the north, which is why the U.S. and Europe
02:51are trying to ramp up sea convoys of aid while also resorting to airdropping food and humanitarian
02:56assistance into Gaza.
02:58On Sunday, the U.S. and Jordan conducted another joint drop into northern Gaza, dangerous and
03:04desperate measures with no secure distribution and local crime families grabbing whatever
03:10they can.
03:11Jordan's Queen Rania has been outspoken in defense of Gaza civilians and urging the
03:15United States and other Israeli allies to use all their leverage to end what she calls
03:20Israel's deliberate effort to deprive those in need.
03:24And I spoke with her exclusively from the King Abdullah Air Base in Jordan, just ahead
03:28of another airdrop.
03:31Queen Rania, welcome back to our program.
03:33Thank you, Christiane.
03:34Can I first ask you, it is Ramadan, it's just started.
03:39And I wonder what your reflections are for yourself, for your family, for Muslims around
03:44the world celebrating, or maybe that's not the right word, marking Ramadan this year
03:49in the middle of this war.
03:50Well, you know, Christiane, Ramadan for us is a month of worship, charity and compassion
03:58for our fellow human being.
04:01And I think this year we're welcoming these holidays with very heavy hearts.
04:05Ramadan is typically defined with family gatherings, people coming together, sharing a meal and
04:11breaking their fast together.
04:12But what is it like for the people of Gaza today, who are now hungry and thirsty in tents
04:17or makeshift shelters, who are mourning their death and mourning the life that they had
04:22just a few months ago?
04:24You know, Christiane, since the beginning of this war, Israel has cut off everything
04:29that is required to sustain a human life, food, fuel, shelter, medicine, water.
04:38And this has been going on now for five months and has left the people of Gaza completely
04:43reliant on outside assistance.
04:48And actually, it has systematically denied and delayed a lot of that assistance, occasionally
04:52bombing some of the convoys that bring this assistance and bombing some of the people,
04:56shooting at some of the people who are trying to get whatever scarce resources that they
05:00can get.
05:01According to the UN, every single person in Gaza today is hungry.
05:07Over a quarter of the population, that's more than 550,000 people, are one step away
05:11from famine.
05:13Experts say that they have never seen a population descend into such mass hunger so rapidly.
05:19I mean, I'm hearing of people just eating whatever they can get their hands on, including
05:23grass or they're having to grind, you know, bird feed or animal fodder just to make bread.
05:30And in the north of Gaza, people are not on the verge of starvation.
05:33They're actually dying of starvation.
05:35It starts with the most vulnerable, the elderly, the wounded, babies.
05:41We're hearing increasing number of babies who are dying from severe malnutrition and
05:46thirst.
05:47And if things don't change, I think these cases are going to be spiraling throughout
05:50the Strip.
05:51And, you know, this has been a slow-motion mass murder of children, five months in the
05:57making.
05:58Children who were thriving and healthy just months ago are wasting away in front of their
06:03parents.
06:05Now, starvation is a very slow, cruel and painful death.
06:10Your muscles shrink, your immune system shuts down, your organs give out.
06:15Imagine being a parent, having to go through that, witness your child going through that
06:20and not being able to do anything to help.
06:22It is absolutely shameful, outrageous and entirely predictable what's happening in Gaza
06:28today because it was deliberate.
06:31And, Rania, we have been reporting systematically what you are describing.
06:35In fact, a lot of the world is now and has been reporting this severe hunger, the statistics,
06:42the pictures that you're talking about.
06:43I wonder whether you think that is the reason why, for instance, the United States, the
06:49U.K., other nations which are allies of Israel have started to really ramp up their need
06:57to deliver aid, like the airdrops that Jordan has been involved in.
07:01You see the U.S. doing it.
07:03You see the idea of a floating pier in order to bring much more aid via the sea.
07:09Do you think the message that you've just described has actually now gotten through?
07:14Well, look, let me just be very clear about what these airdrops are.
07:18They are us resorting to desperate measures in order to address a desperate situation.
07:24These airdrops are literally just drops in an ocean of unmet needs.
07:28And King Abdullah has said from the very beginning they are neither sufficient nor they are a
07:32substitute for humanitarian access at scale.
07:37So countries should not use them as a way out, nor should they be viewed as an excuse
07:41for not doing what needs to be done, and that is implementing an immediate and sustained
07:47ceasefire, opening all access points into Gaza, particularly land routes, streamlining
07:53the inspection process and making sure that there is safe access within Gaza so that the
07:59aid can be distributed.
08:01Every moment counts.
08:03Children are starving as we speak, so every moment and every meal counts.
08:07And so I think now we're past the stage of trying to talk Israel into doing these things.
08:11We need to actually start using measures and political leverage to get them to do those
08:15things.
08:16Can I ask you to describe what Jordan has done?
08:18First of all, you're sitting in an airbase.
08:21I believe behind you is some of the goods and humanitarian items that will be dropped.
08:27Tell me when they're going to be dropped into Gaza and how has Jordan's experience been
08:33with, for instance, its hospital there, with the airdropping?
08:37Well, look, the reason why we started doing these airdrops is we found that after trying
08:45so hard in vain to persuade Israel to open the access points, the land access points,
08:51that we had to do something.
08:52We couldn't just sit idle and watch people starving.
08:55And so King Abdullah started organizing these airdrops.
08:59But I have to emphasize that the need is much greater than what we're being able to provide.
09:05As it stands today, there are trucks, there's tons of food in trucks that are miles away
09:11from people who are starving.
09:13So the hunger is not a natural disaster.
09:16This is a man-made, an Israeli-made disaster.
09:20It is deprivation by design.
09:22No matter the volume of aid going in, nothing is a substitute for a ceasefire.
09:28Delivering aid under bombardment does not stop the destruction, the death, and the heartbreak.
09:35We cannot save people from hunger, only then to bomb them to death.
09:39So again, an immediate ceasefire is the number one priority.
09:44So clearly Hamas has said that it wants a long-term ceasefire.
09:48As you've heard, not only the Israeli government, but also the U.S. president said that when
09:53they thought there was a possibility of a ceasefire and a release of hostages and much
09:57increased aid into Gaza, the last thing we heard was that it's up to Hamas to sign on.
10:04What does Jordan believe to be the sticking point with a ceasefire?
10:09Look, I'm not privy to the specifics of the negotiations.
10:13What I do know is that from a humanitarian perspective, we need to secure a ceasefire
10:17as soon as possible so that aid operations can be restored at scale, so that people can
10:23start burying their dead, so that they can start healing.
10:26This has been going on for way too long.
10:29And this is not a time to hold out for political victories.
10:32There are no victories to be had as long as this war continues.
10:35There's only loss after loss after loss.
10:38And I believe that the international community really needs to weigh in.
10:42Israel has been able to operate with impunity, and that has really affected the credibility
10:48of many countries in the West.
10:50Now, I'm happy to see that some nations have changed their positions, have shifted.
10:54You know, a country like France, we're very grateful to President Macron, who has called
11:00for a ceasefire, and who has been with us, executing these airdrops right from the beginning.
11:06Countries like Spain, Belgium, Ireland, South Africa, Latin America, all these countries
11:11are asking for a ceasefire.
11:13We've seen solidarity from the global public, and, you know, exceptional solidarity from
11:19the global public.
11:20And that's sometimes created a rift between the public and their own leaders, including
11:24in places where you are, where the public is wondering, when are their governments going
11:28to start taking more decisive positions?
11:32You know, it's just that every time a child is being pulled out of the rubble, the credibility
11:39of countries, even like the United States, their values of equality, justice, and human
11:45rights, they're called into question.
11:48People in my part of the world are not only angry, they are disillusioned and disappointed.
11:54Many people admired Western values, and now they're having to rethink their worldview,
11:59because they're asking, you know, how come human rights are granted to some and denied
12:03to others?
12:04So President Biden publicly urged no offensive into Rafa, saying that it would cause, I cannot
12:12sit back and see another 30,000 deaths in Gaza, and said to Israel that it would cause
12:17more damage to the Israeli cause than benefit Israel.
12:22Then Netanyahu responds saying, my red line is no more Hamas, no more threats, and by
12:29the way, no state, no two state solutions.
12:33So what is Jordan thinking about not just the immediate, but the day after?
12:40Because clearly you are the country, one of them, that does believe in a two state and
12:44does have a peace treaty with Israel.
12:46Well, look, Christian, I think it's no coincidence that we're witnessing one of the most violent
12:51episodes of this conflict under one of the most hardline, racist governments in Israel's
12:59history.
13:02Prime Minister Netanyahu, by his own admission, says that his policy was based on divide and
13:06conquer, covertly propping up Hamas in order to undermine the Palestinian authority and
13:11then say there's no partner for peace.
13:14Last year, even before October 7th, we had set a record in terms of settlement expansion
13:22and construction.
13:24Just last week, the Israeli government approved plans to build 3,500 more illegal settlements
13:31on occupied West Bank land, and sure, some of its allies condemned those plans, but as
13:37in previous cases, there's condemnation, but then the plans are carried out.
13:42As long as Israel is allowed to get away with breaking international law, as long as
13:48its allies don't hold it accountable, it will just increase its sense of impunity.
13:53So for years, Israel talks peace, but then condemns it to death by settlements, making
13:58a contiguous, independent Palestinian state less viable by the day.
14:03And for the longest time, we hear the international community talking about a two state solution
14:08while allowing Israel to create a one state reality.
14:12And so, you know, I think the time for trying to persuade Israel to do the right thing has
14:18long passed.
14:19It is time for us, we are not, when you look at the horrendous reality that's in Gaza today,
14:24it is hard to believe that Israel is being unfairly singled out, that it's being held
14:30to a higher standard.
14:32Critics of Israel merely wanted to do the bare minimum, which is just abide by international
14:38law.
14:39Obviously, you were received at the White House along with the King.
14:42You also went to Capitol Hill, where some of the strongest support does reside.
14:47What message did you deliver on Capitol Hill and what did you hear from them?
14:51Well, I think a lot of people need to know more about this conflict to really understand
14:57the intricacies of it, to understand that this is one of the greatest historical injustices
15:04and to understand what the root cause of this issue is, to understand that this conflict
15:08did not begin on October 7th, that it was a result of years of occupation, of settlement
15:16expansion, of human rights abuses, of disregard for international law.
15:22And this is what led us to this point.
15:24You know, if we look at Israel today, you know, sometimes you hear the prime minister
15:30justifying the war by saying that he is doing what the public wants and that the overwhelming
15:35majority of Israelis support this war.
15:38Well, you know, I refuse to believe that an entire population can look at what's going
15:44on in Gaza and be okay with it.
15:46In Israel, the dehumanization of Palestinians is systematic.
15:52It's ingrained.
15:53It is ubiquitous.
15:55They believe that if we don't kill them, they're going to kill us.
16:00And so I blame hardline Israeli leaders for keeping their people in this perpetual state
16:07of fear of an existential threat that doesn't exist and making them feel like just killing
16:15Palestinians and killing Hamas is going to be the solution to the problem.
16:19Let me ask you.
16:20The real solution to the problem is to end the occupation.
16:24Palestinians do not hate Israelis because of who they are.
16:27They hate them because of what they're doing to them.
16:30And so if we do the greatest guarantee for Israel's security, and this is what I want
16:35to say to what I said to the Americans, if you want to safeguard Israel's security, there
16:41is no better way to do it than through a just and comprehensive peace.
16:46No army in the world, the strongest army in the world, the most proficient intelligence,
16:53whatever, will not guarantee Israel's security as much as a just and comprehensive peace would.
17:01We in this part of the world need to find a way to share these holy lands in peace.
17:06So what you say, I mean, basically, the Israeli public does support the war because they want
17:11A, their people back, and B, they don't want to live side by side with Hamas at all ever again.
17:17They don't want to be in that situation under that threat.
17:20You said it doesn't present an existential threat.
17:24Hold on a second. Hold on a second.
17:26I mean, the question is, the question is, how if it was you and you were to give a speech
17:34or a visit to the Israeli people who said to you, but Queen Rania, you may have a peace
17:39treaty with us, but look what Hamas did to us on October 7th, what would you say to them
17:45about how they should?
17:46I mean, you've talked about the history, but I mean, there's such a trauma that everybody
17:52we talk to right now says it's still as if it is October 7th, even though Prime Minister
17:58Netanyahu's ratings are in the dumpster.
18:02They don't support him, but they do support the idea of not having that threat anywhere
18:08near them anymore.
18:10You know, I would say that as devastating and as traumatic as October 7th was, it doesn't
18:16give Israel license to commit atrocity after atrocity.
18:20And Israel experienced one October 7th.
18:25Since then, the Palestinians have experienced 156 October 7th.
18:30They have been going through this every day.
18:32And prior to October 7th, they have been living in 50 years of oppression, of occupation,
18:41of having their movement restricted, having every aspect of their lives dominated, being
18:48humiliated.
18:51If I speak to the Israeli public, I would say, if you want your peace and your security,
18:57you have to address this big injustice that's on your doorstep.
19:01There's no shortcut.
19:02There is no security measure that is going to bring the more hopeful future and the stability
19:10that you want in your lives, other than finding a way to live with Palestinians.
19:16Israeli leaders must stop treating the existence of Palestinians as an inconvenient truth,
19:22as a demographic challenge, as a mode that needs to be a mode every now and then.
19:28Palestinians are here to stay.
19:30And so we have to find a way to live with one another.
19:34And we have to be able to rehumanize, to be able to see the humanity of the other reflect
19:41our humanity reflected in others' eyes.
19:43An Israeli mother should understand that a Palestinian mother cares about her children
19:48just as much as she does.
19:50And there's just no way around that.
19:52I don't believe that peace is just about politics.
19:55Peace is about state of mind.
19:57It's about, it's a culture.
19:59It's about values.
20:01And those are the values that really need to be addressed.
20:03And they're long overdue.
20:05Queen Rania, thank you very much for joining us.
20:08Thank you, Christiane.
20:10Now both the Gaza and Ukraine wars were addressed at the Oscars last night.
20:15Director Jonathan Glazer had some strong words as he accepted the award for Best International
20:20Feature.
20:21His chilling film, Zone of Interest, follows the domestic life of the Nazi commandant and
20:26his family at Auschwitz.
20:29Right now we stand here as men who refute their Jewishness and the Holocaust being hijacked
20:33by an occupation which has led to conflict for so many innocent people.
20:38Whether the victims of October the 7th in Israel or the ongoing attack on Gaza, all
20:50are victims of this dehumanization.
20:53How do we resist?
20:57Glazer's film is all about the banality of evil and a warning against complicity.
21:02Indeed, he told us in an interview last month, the film is not saying look at what they did.
21:08It's also saying look at what we do.
21:10And the war in Ukraine was also in the spotlight.
21:13The film 20 Days in Mariupol won the Oscar for Best Documentary.
21:17It was shot in that Ukrainian port city during the early assault and siege by Russian forces.
21:23Here's photographer and director, Mr. Slav Chernov.
21:26This is the first, this is the first Oscar in the Ukrainian history.
21:34We can make sure that the history record is set straight and that the truth will prevail
21:46and that the people of Mariupol and those who given their lives will never be forgotten.
21:54Because cinema forms memories and memories form history.
21:59And harrowing images like these from Mariupol will indeed be impossible to forget.
22:18And two years on, Ukrainians continue to suffer such horrors every day.
22:22I spoke to Chernov back in December here in the studio.
22:26If we don't report everything as it is, if we don't show to people across the world,
22:33to our viewers, to our audience, the reality of war, it becomes acceptable.
22:40It's a big danger not exposing the war for all its brutality, for all its absurd.
22:47And if it's polished, if it's sanitized, then it's acceptable.
22:54And that shouldn't be the case.
22:56So the reality is that MAGA politics in Congress continues to prevent desperately needed ammunition
23:02and weapons reaching Ukraine, and latest news from the battlefield shows that Russia currently
23:08is firing around 10,000 shells a day compared to just 2,000 a day from the Ukrainian side.
23:15They are running out.
23:17The Best Actor winner, Cillian Murphy, who played Oppenheimer, father of the atomic bomb,
23:22dedicated his award to the peacemakers everywhere.
23:26It is generally taken as an article of faith that the 2003 Iraq war was the single biggest
23:32American foreign policy blunder in recent history, with blowbacks still being felt far
23:37and wide.
23:39Investigations and special commissions established within weeks, practically, that Saddam Hussein
23:43actually did not possess the weapons of mass destruction, which were the reason for George
23:48W. Bush's war.
23:50The two-decade mystery about Saddam Hussein's refusal to admit that is being revealed in
23:57a breakthrough new book called The Achilles Trap.
24:00Journalist Steve Cole uncovers the story from inside Saddam's palaces, and he's joining
24:05me now to explain the dangerous assumptions on both sides that paved the way for that
24:10war.
24:11Steve Cole, welcome to the program.
24:13Thanks.
24:14So, honestly, it's war everywhere.
24:18It's in our consciences and our consciousness, and it's just everywhere, as we've just talked
24:22about in this entire show.
24:24I wonder whether, listening to everything that's happening now, you feel that actually
24:30this book, The Achilles Trap, and the miscommunication or maybe the deliberate misunderstandings
24:38led to a war that could have been prevented.
24:41I think in the case of Iraq, yes, no doubt.
24:46And the misunderstanding was mutual.
24:48That's what I was reflecting on listening to some of the other conversations in this
24:51program is that we live in a world of conflict, and that means a world of adversaries.
24:57As some of your guests have said about different conflicts, the tendency of politicians, sometimes
25:02incented by their own domestic politics, is to dehumanize the enemy and to caricature
25:08them.
25:09What the story of Saddam Hussein's thinking about his WMD shows is that we did not understand
25:16who he was or why he was motivated to behave the way he did.
25:21And he didn't understand what the U.S. knew and didn't know, and he had his own ideas,
25:26basically, out of whole cloth about what America might be thinking.
25:30So first I want to ask you, okay, this is a long time coming, this book.
25:34As I said, we understood very shortly after the invasion that there were no WMD.
25:39But it's taken this long for us to understand Saddam's inner thinking.
25:44And that's because you got access to all sorts of records.
25:47How did it take that long to make them public, or at least to you?
25:51Well, I mean, so it turns out that Saddam tape-recorded his leadership conversations
25:55as assiduously as Richard Nixon, thousands of hours.
25:59And he also kept records of his presidential office and his intelligence services.
26:04So there's a vast trove of documentation and recordings about what he was saying and thinking.
26:10He was a micromanager.
26:11He wrote in the margins of a lot of memos that he sent around.
26:14But as you say, these records are not available.
26:17They haven't generally been available.
26:19I ended up collaborating with the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, a non-profit
26:24in the U.S., and we sued the Pentagon, which holds them.
26:27Is that like a FOIA, Freedom of Information?
26:30Precisely, yeah.
26:31In order to file the lawsuit, you initially file a request under FOIA.
26:34Then they don't comply.
26:36Then you sue them, and then they settle, and that's what happened.
26:39So I got a batch of these materials that way.
26:42And it's a complicated history.
26:44But essentially, those records do take you inside Saddam's mind at critical points of
26:49his conflict with the United States.
26:50Well, I don't know whether we should work backward or forward.
26:53I mean, he was wrong in the Iran-Iraq war about America, in the first Gulf War about
26:58America, in the George W. Bush war about America.
27:01So what stood out the most, let's just say, about his miscalculation that led to the invasion
27:08and his toppling?
27:09Well, he's so contradictory because he can be quite shrewd about the way the world is
27:16organized and about power.
27:17After all, he retained power under threat for 20 years, so he must know something about
27:22how to manage the threats against him.
27:24At the same time, he saw the world through a series of interlocking conspiracy theories
27:29that left him very confused about U.S. decision-making or the reality of U.S. capabilities.
27:35So for example, one reason why he didn't cooperate on WMD inspections in the run-up to the war
27:41was that he believed the CIA already knew that he didn't possess any WMD, because of
27:47course they're omniscient, they know everything, but then follow the logic, since they know
27:52I don't have it, the accusation that I do is just a game to set the stage for a war
27:59that has no relation to WMD, so why should I play their game?
28:02Why should I cooperate?
28:03It's all theater.
28:04Now that is a microcosm of a whole series of other similar beliefs that he held going
28:10back to the 1980s.
28:11And by the way, it wasn't as if he was all crazy or without evidence for some of his
28:16beliefs because we did things that were genuinely confusing for him.
28:21Well, Iran-Contra, you mentioned the 80s, so he starts a war with Iran in 1980, unprovoked.
28:28And then in 1982, the Reagan administration panics, thinks he's about to lose the war,
28:32the Iranians are going to break through his lines, so they send a CIA officer to Baghdad
28:36carrying secret intelligence information to help the Iraqis see what's coming and to prevent
28:42it.
28:43They then cooperate for years, the U.S. providing satellite pictures to Saddam.
28:48All along, Saddam is saying to his comrades, we can see on the tapes now, I don't trust
28:52this.
28:53These photos may be doctored or if they're not doctored, they're giving the same ones
28:56to Iran.
28:57His team say, boss, you're being too suspicious.
29:01And then in 1986, as you remember, it was announced in the United States that we were
29:06in fact cooperating with the Israelis to provide Ayatollah Khomeini with weapons and intelligence,
29:12not so-
29:13It was literally all over the place.
29:14It was literally all over the place.
29:15There's this great tape of him after Reagan makes the speech announcing that he has in
29:19fact been secretly supporting Iran, where Saddam comes in and says, I told you so.
29:24This is the reality.
29:26There is a permanent conspiracy involving the CIA, the Israelis, Ayatollah Khomeini.
29:30By the way, Khomeini is an American project.
29:33And even in the 90s, he would refer back to Iran-Contra in explaining why he was taking
29:39a rebellious course.
29:40And in the 90s, let's say the early 90s, when, you know, I remember because I covered it,
29:45there were weeks of mounting tension.
29:48And he just kept threatening and threatening.
29:50And the U.S., what did the U.S. do?
29:52Because in your documents, you say something incredible.
29:57I want you to say what you discovered Saddam Hussein said.
30:00Had he been warned?
30:02You mean about going into Kuwait?
30:04Yes.
30:05In 1990.
30:06So he later said, if you didn't want me to go into Kuwait, why didn't you tell me?
30:09And this became, of course, a huge episode in American politics at the time, because
30:15there was an ambassador in Baghdad, April Glaspie, a pioneering woman who was the first
30:20Arabist of her generation to serve at that level.
30:24And she was thrown under the bus by the Bush administration, saying that she had-
30:27H.W. Bush.
30:28H.W. Bush.
30:29That she had gone in and been too soft with Saddam in an important meeting.
30:32Well, I've now had the benefit of these records and hindsight.
30:36And clearly, she has been falsely accused of being responsible for this.
30:42To the extent that she was- two points.
30:44First, to the extent that what she said was too soft, it was written for her by the H.W.
30:50White House.
30:51I mean, she was just reading out-
30:52So there was no Saddam Hussein, do not cross that red line, because we will oust you.
30:56Because we were still trapped in the policy of cooperation with him.
31:00And George H.W. Bush, being a good foreign policy president, was calling all around the
31:04Arab world, asking for advice.
31:07He saw the threats that Saddam was making, and he would call up King Fahd in Saudi Arabia,
31:11King Hussein in Jordan, Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, and say, what should I think?
31:15I'm worried.
31:16And they would all say, we got it, George.
31:18This is just a bluff.
31:20Don't get involved.
31:21It's all just putting the arm on the Kuwaitis to get some loans forgiven.
31:25Please stay away.
31:26And Bush, being a kind of internationalist, believing in the advice of allies, said, OK,
31:31I'll take their advice.
31:32And it turned out it was wrong.
31:33Isn't this something you also raised, the idea of miscommunication between leaders?
31:37Why didn't Bush pick up the phone and call Saddam Hussein?
31:41And then you have a very interesting, we'll get to the Clinton one in a second, why didn't
31:45Bush call leader to leader?
31:48Well, he should have, and he might have.
31:50In fact, at the very end, when Iraqi forces went across the Kuwait border into the Emirate,
31:56his aides rushed to him in the White House and said, time to call Saddam.
32:01And just as they were about to do that, they got word from the CIA that Iraqi troops were
32:05already downtown Kuwait City.
32:07So Bush says, well, I guess it's too late for that.
32:10So now we go back to the fall of 2002.
32:13Here is George W. Bush on Saddam Hussein.
32:16He deceives, he delays, he denies.
32:21And the United States, and I'm convinced the world community, aren't going to fall for
32:26that kind of rhetoric by him again.
32:32So we've discussed a little bit of it, but I think it's so interesting you write, a CIA
32:37capable of making an analytical mistake on the scale of its myths about Iraq's WMD was
32:43not part of his worldview.
32:45Yes.
32:46And so we mentioned, we talked before about how his confusion about the CIA's omniscience
32:52and omnipotence confused and misled him.
32:55But let's remember the confusing underlying story.
32:59So in 1991, after Iraqi troops were expelled from Kuwait, we now know that Saddam ordered
33:06his son-in-law to destroy all the WMD stocks he had, but he didn't tell anyone about what
33:13he had done.
33:14He didn't keep any records.
33:15So that's nuclear, biological, and...
33:17Chemical.
33:18All three.
33:19All three.
33:20And also missiles that were banned because of their long-range capabilities.
33:24So he lied to his own generals, he lied to inspectors about it, and he kept no records
33:28of what he had done because he had it in his mind that he wanted to pass inspections and
33:35then be relieved of sanctions.
33:37And if he passed inspections, maybe the Russians or the French would come in and support him
33:42and get sanctions relief.
33:44He could only pass inspections if he didn't have anything there to get caught with, but
33:47at the same time to admit that he was disarming before the world would have been humiliating,
33:53he would have none of that.
33:54He sought glory and dignity in the Arab world as a Fidel Castro defiant sort of leader,
34:00and he also feared that it would make him vulnerable.
34:02That if Iran or Israel saw that he had no deterrence, that they would attack him.
34:08It's remarkable.
34:09Again, back to communications, I think it's so revealing.
34:13One of the quotes, it's about Clinton, because I remember a lot of cruise missiles into Iraq
34:19during the 90s.
34:21This is from Bill Clinton privately to Tony Blair, who was prime minister here in 1998.
34:25If I weren't constrained by the press, says Clinton, I would pick up the call and call
34:31the SOB.
34:32Yeah.
34:33And he didn't.
34:34No, he didn't.
34:35And in fact...
34:36So what do you mean by the press?
34:37What did he mean by constrained by the press?
34:38Well, he meant that he would be attacked by House Republicans who then controlled under
34:42then Speaker Newt Gingrich the House of Representatives, and he felt under a lot of political pressure
34:48over Iraq.
34:50The Republicans were giving him a hard time, saying he was being too soft on Saddam.
34:55But the larger issue is that we now can recognize that between 1991 and 2003, there was no contact
35:04at high levels between the Iraqi government and the United States.
35:081991 and 2003.
35:10Never mind Clinton picking up the phone and calling Saddam, not even at the intelligence
35:14service level, not even in secret, not even diplomats talking to one another.
35:19They were completely isolated by design in order to try to maintain allies or a coalition
35:25of people who would sign up to the sanctions.
35:28So they were afraid that if they started talking to Saddam that they would weaken the consensus
35:32around the sanctions, which after all, we now know, punished the Iraqi people more than
35:36they punished Saddam.
35:37Awful.
35:38I mean, it was...
35:39And we saw after the toppling of Saddam how the sanctions had essentially ravaged and
35:45crippled the country, which was one part of how they weren't able to rise, apart from
35:49anything else.
35:50But I think this is just incredibly crazy as well.
35:54You wrote that if the United States had a better read on Saddam right before 2003, they
35:58might have realized that he had lost interest in the military adventures and he had turned
36:04to writing novels.
36:05I'm afraid so, yes.
36:07They're not very good.
36:08But he had entered his 60s and in part because we had no contact with him, so we had no basis
36:13to kind of get that tactile human feel for who he had become.
36:18We didn't know that in his 60s he wasn't the same as he was when he was a younger adventurer.
36:23And he had become isolated within his own kind of palace and intelligence system.
36:28But he was using his time obsessively to write novels in handwritten Arabic, hours a day
36:34turning pages over to his editors.
36:37And he wrote four in a period of two or three, four years.
36:41And anyway, he had his mind on other subjects.
36:46I want to ask you, you know, finally when he did talk to Americans, they were the interrogators.
36:51Yes.
36:52And he was busy smoking cigarettes and cigars.
36:55What kind of relationship did they have?
36:58We've got 30 seconds.
36:59Yeah, there were about two records, one from an FBI interrogator and then also a CIA interrogator.
37:05And generally, if they asked him about history, he was forthcoming and would be willing to
37:11explain why the Americans were wrong.
37:13Yeah, I wish we could go on.
37:15It's just a fascinating insight.
37:17Anyway, the Achilles' trap.
37:18I didn't even ask you why.
37:20We'll put it online why it's called the Achilles' trap.
37:23Steve Cole, thank you so much indeed.
37:25Now, our next guest is a basketball veteran who spent 12 years in the NBA.
37:30Rex Chapman was a top ten pick in 1988, but he gambled away his millions and he became
37:36addicted to opioids after several injuries.
37:39He reflects on the highs and the lows of his career in a new memoir.
37:43And now he shares his story with Michelle Martin.
37:47Thanks Christiane.
37:48Rex Chapman, thank you so much for talking with us.
37:50Thank you for having me, Michelle.
37:52Thank you.
37:53I mean, you know, best high school player in Kentucky, superstar at the University of
37:58Kentucky, first ever draft pick of the expansion Charlotte Hornets, member of the U.S. national
38:05team.
38:06So let's go back to the beginning.
38:07Why basketball?
38:08Yeah, you know, I played every sport growing up.
38:10I loved foot.
38:11I did love football.
38:13I didn't like getting hit, but I liked hitting baseball.
38:17I couldn't hit, but I could feel and I could pitch and all that.
38:21Whatever season it was, I was a really good swimmer.
38:23That was my main sport growing up first.
38:27But basketball was, you know, my dad played basketball.
38:32He knows everyone in basketball.
38:34He coached basketball.
38:35And from the time literally that I could walk and pick up a basketball, I was dribbling
38:41a basketball on the side at his practices.
38:44So I learned probably how to dribble behind my back and between my legs and all that stuff
38:49before I knew it was hard.
38:51It was just second nature to me.
38:53By the time I got in first grade, I could do things the fifth and sixth graders were
38:56doing and, and that was just kind of my, my, my chart.
39:02That's the way my life went.
39:04But somehow, you know, 12 seasons in the NBA, but somehow the title of your memoir,
39:09it's hard for me to live with me.
39:15Hard to fathom.
39:16Why?
39:17Uh, I know I, I struggled a lot in my life, just with insecurities and different things.
39:23And I had, I for sure dating back to when I was a teenager was starting to suffer from
39:28depression a little bit and mental, some mental illness.
39:32I was constantly getting in trouble, um, just really running wild.
39:38I didn't, didn't really have any coping skills for, for what I was dealing with externally.
39:44The basketball part was, I'm not going to say it was easy, but it was, uh, I was, I
39:51had worked so hard at it for so long that it was kind of like second nature.
39:57And um, it was just the, all of the other stuff that I couldn't handle or had trouble
40:01handling off court interviews, um, relationships, uh, living in an adult world when I felt
40:0912.
40:10So, um, yeah, it's, it's hard for me to live with me sometimes.
40:15Still now, still to this day, still some, but, but way better.
40:20Um, you know, the last eight or nine years, nine and a half, actually, I've been clean
40:24from opioids and have really from that point on started making a conscious effort to try
40:32to figure out myself and, and kind of why I made the choices I did.
40:37And that's been painful, but it's been good.
40:40I just didn't have any coping skills and I've had to learn how to sit in my, in my bad emotions
40:46and not numb them, not run and get a pain pill and try to escape.
40:52So that's been the hardest part.
40:54People are going to know you from lots of different parts of your life.
40:56Some people are going to know you as that kind of the basketball star.
40:59Some people are going to know the fact that you did struggle with opioid addiction for
41:03years and were arrested for it.
41:06And other people are going to know you as a kind of a social media guy that has like
41:09a million followers and you kind of lay it on the line.
41:13You really go into detail on all of those lives and it's painful.
41:17It has, it's painful to read in parts, but it has, so that has to have been painful to
41:21write.
41:22What made you want to do it?
41:24It really has.
41:25It's been terrifying.
41:26It's been, I've kept a lot of this stuff bottled up for years.
41:29I mean, there were times I had to just bail for a couple of weeks because emotionally
41:33I couldn't do it.
41:35Or I had remembered something that happened that, that I had completely compartmentalized
41:41and had to kind of take a step back.
41:44In 1986, I had at school, unrelated to basketball, I had a panic attack.
41:50It was something that was going on.
41:53They were kind of telling me who I could date and who I couldn't date at school.
41:56And I kind of realized that was BS.
41:59And I had what at the time, you know, I'd only heard people describe as like a nervous
42:05breakdown.
42:06Like I woke up as a teenager and I couldn't move and everything seemed awful.
42:11I thought everything is, what's the point of any of this?
42:14And I forgot about that for about 30 years.
42:19And about six months ago, when we were finishing up the book, I had another panic attack.
42:23I've never had one.
42:25I'd never had one since.
42:26I had one again.
42:28And I'm sure therapy possibly could have been a lifesaver for me when I was 18 or 19 years
42:35old.
42:36I was too proud to talk to anybody and, you know, try to keep up this facade that everything
42:41was going great for me on the outside.
42:43One of the really interesting things about your book is the way you deal with race, grapple
42:47with race.
42:48As a white player, the racial dynamics of the sport and of the kind of the whole ecosystem
42:55of the sport.
42:56So if I could just get you to read a little bit from the book, you know, page 51.
43:01I hear myself being compared often to former Wildcats.
43:04Kyle Macy is the one I hear the most.
43:07I also hear a lot of comparisons to non-Kentucky players like Pete Maravich and Jerry West.
43:12No doubt those guys were great players, but I don't know anything about them except that
43:16they are white.
43:17That bugs me because I think of myself more like Daryl Griffith and NC State's David Thompson,
43:23the two guys I idolize the most.
43:25Both of them are killer athletes who attack the rim with abandon.
43:28I try to imitate them every time out, but that's how it is in sports.
43:32White guys are compared to white guys and black guys are compared to black guys.
43:36It's a pattern that will recur throughout my career and bother me to no end.
43:41And that's just the half of it.
43:45You were in love with, it's fair to say in love with, an African-American girl, right?
43:51And you were discouraged from dating her.
43:55Say more about that.
43:57Shawn Higgs and I, Shawn is my, she was my girlfriend in high school, like probably my
44:03first love.
44:04Her first, you know, we were 15, 16 years old and we grew up together.
44:09People in our hometown didn't like it very much.
44:12So we kind of hid it and as best we could, all the kids knew she went to Kentucky too.
44:19And she was a track star in high school.
44:21We were in a town of about 60,000 where we grew up.
44:24And I think we just assumed that when we went to school, that it's a bigger city.
44:30I think we thought of Lexington, Kentucky is like New York.
44:34We got to Lexington and started going to class together and stuff like that.
44:38And very quickly I got called into the coach's office and they said, Hey, Rex, listen, because
44:45also every school that recruited me knew Shawn was my girlfriend.
44:49And they had made it clear to me that that was not going to be an issue.
44:53All of them did.
44:54And when I came in, you know, the coaches were in there and our head coach, he said,
45:01Hey, Rex, listen, you and Shawn been walking to class together.
45:03You need to be careful about that.
45:05You just, you guys spend time together when it's dark or at night.
45:11I said, yes, sir.
45:16And as the most cowardice thing ever, and I just didn't, I couldn't stand up for myself.
45:23And also I knew I was going to have to go tell Shawn.
45:25And so, you know, I just remember telling Shawn and her eyes starting to well up and
45:33me in that moment thinking I'm never going to love something so much that I hurt like
45:37this.
45:38And I felt something kind of break in me a little bit at the time to where I started
45:42putting my emotions away.
45:46I know you're sort of, it's still personally painful, but what do you think that says about
45:53the sort of the world you were in writ large?
45:55Is that that white players like yourself have to be sort of reserved for white people to
46:00like?
46:02What do you think that that means?
46:04Well, first of all, I didn't do the work to, to in college to be an academic, all sec person
46:13or make the Dean's list, but I did miraculously.
46:18They just put me on those things I had, you know, they needed my image to be the all American
46:26kid on campus, a white kid, homegrown from Kentucky.
46:32And they didn't, I guess my dating, my girlfriend didn't fit that sort of image and they, they,
46:44they were definitely afraid of it.
46:46They just were.
46:47And it still makes me mad.
46:49Still makes me sad.
46:50Hmm.
46:51I see that.
46:53So let's fast forward the other big pain point in your life.
46:56You're in the pros, you are having a successful career.
47:01How did the addiction start?
47:03Yeah.
47:04Yeah.
47:05Well, I think again, I was always a basketball addict.
47:07I just didn't, you know, I didn't drink and drug, but I, I would wake up in the middle
47:12of the night in a panic at midnight, realizing someone on the West coast was still at a park
47:18playing and I do pushups or go run and come back, go to bed.
47:23I was, I was weirdly motivated like that.
47:26So I was an addict always.
47:27If somebody gave me a Jolly Rancher, the little candy I'd be like one, I want that whole bag.
47:34Those are good.
47:35Like I, uh, I've always been that way.
47:38If I like it, I like it.
47:40And I started gambling when I got stressed, I left and I was stressed all the time.
47:48And so I would go to the track, spend hours at the track, um, and then go back to the
47:54gym.
47:55So that's probably where it started.
47:56And then my lap, my last three years of playing in the NBA, I had seven surgeries right at
48:02the end of my last surgery, a doctor gave me a new drug called Oxycontin.
48:06He said, take it.
48:08I took it.
48:09And in two days I was in love.
48:10It was the greatest thing I've ever had in my life and probably have had, uh, made me
48:15feel smarter, funnier, better, better husband, better dad, more relaxed in my own skin.
48:22If people came up and wanted to chit chat, I was all for it.
48:25Like, come on, all my social anxiety went away.
48:29And as they say in rehab, drugs are fun at first, and then it's drugs and problems.
48:38And then it's just problems, uh, after a short period of time.
48:42And that's what it was with me.
48:43It was a very, you know, 18 months after retiring, I was taking probably 40 Vicodin and nine
48:49Oxycontin a day.
48:51And Danny Ames came to me and said, Hey, you are messing your life up.
48:55You got to go to rehab.
48:56So that was kind of the, the start.
48:59And that was in 2001.
49:00And we go on to rehab and I, I did it three different times.
49:04Uh, the last time in 2014, after I was arrested for shoplifting in an Apple store, uh, a
49:14still can't, it's hard to say those words.
49:16Uh, and, uh, yeah, after that, I went to rehab and I was broken and broke and I was just
49:24raw.
49:25I was rock bottom.
49:26And if I was going to live, then I was going to have to try to figure out what landed me
49:31in this spot.
49:33You tell this really heartbreaking story of when you were released from jail after having
49:37been arrested for shoplifting at an Apple store and you're, and you, you don't, you
49:42know, you don't have your car.
49:43You don't have your, you don't have anything.
49:44You don't have your license.
49:45You have nothing.
49:46I'll read it for you.
49:47You really don't mind.
49:49Okay.
49:51After a long sleepless night, I'm taken at 6am to appear in front of a judge.
49:55They let me go.
49:56As soon as they hand me my wallet, I dig out that sheet of medicine and put it under my
50:00tongue.
50:01I have no way to get home.
50:02So I start walking toward the freeway, my mind in a total fog.
50:06It's hot.
50:07And after 20 minutes, my son Zeke finds me and pulls up in his car.
50:11He gets out, comes around to hug me and start bawling.
50:15He keeps asking me over and over if I'm okay.
50:18I know I'm sad, but I don't really feel it.
50:20I barely console him.
50:23That's what life, that's what life is like when you're addicted to drugs.
50:26You just go numb.
50:27Here I am.
50:28Worst moment of my life.
50:30Worst moment of his too.
50:31Zeke is completely broken up.
50:34And yet I don't even shed a tear.
50:36I climbed back into his car.
50:38After about five minutes, the medicine kicks in.
50:41I feel much better.
50:42And Zeke drives me home, out of one prison, back into another.
50:49That's tough.
50:50Yeah.
50:51But, you know, you're here to tell us about it, so that's a, that's a victory, right?
50:56I hope so.
50:57I hope so.
50:58You know, it's interesting, the same community that so let you down, you know, not the same
51:04exact ones, but basketball world, right, that so disappointed you and was such hypocrites
51:09about the whole thing.
51:11When you kind of hit that moment, a lot of them really put their arms around you.
51:17The NBA has always done that.
51:19And I've never, I've never really spoken on this.
51:22But when I came in, I left school and I didn't want to leave school.
51:26I didn't feel like I was ready to leave school yet, especially emotionally and socially.
51:32Basketball wise, I, I was fine.
51:34And, you know, I went right into the NBA and was fine physically.
51:40Emotionally, I wasn't.
51:41And when I got into the NBA, guys like Magic Johnson and Isaiah Thomas and all those, all
51:49the stars, black stars, they all put their arms around me, all of them.
51:54And I was, I still am.
51:56I feel like a lot of guys, little brother, you know, Joe Dumars and Rolando Blackman
52:02and all these guys, they knew, they knew what I'd been through.
52:05None of us ever talked about it, but they were so damn nice to me.
52:10And if not for them, my teammates, Dale Curry, Muggsy Bogues, Dale taught me how to tie a tie.
52:16But everyone really put their arm around me and really helped raise me because I was the
52:21youngest player in the NBA by two or three years.
52:25And so that part of it is so heartwarming and it almost brings me to tears thinking
52:31about it when I have to articulate it because they didn't have to do that.
52:35I was a competitor of theirs, but they did.
52:39And I'll never forget it.
52:41What reaction are you getting?
52:42I know a lot of the younger athletes really enjoy it and follow you.
52:46But what about basketball world writ large?
52:51So far, no, it's been very positive, which kind of makes me feel bad, too.
52:56When you're 10 years old and you think about being a famous athlete someday and maybe writing
53:00your memoir, this isn't the memoir that you want to write.
53:04I wanted to write the one that Steve Nash will write someday or Grant Hill will write
53:09someday, just the all-American guy that did everything and could handle all that stuff.
53:14I couldn't handle it.
53:15And that makes me feel bad.
53:18And being praised for it is weird, too.
53:21I feel like I'm failing up.
53:23But a friend of mine told me the other day, said, shut up.
53:25What you're doing is not failing.
53:27So I had to take that in.
53:30Well, before we let you go, you know, one of the other big stories in basketball world
53:35right now is, of course, LeBron James.
53:38You were King Rex for a minute, but he's King James.
53:41Just scored 40,000 points.
53:43But the other big story, Kaitlyn Clarke.
53:45Yes.
53:46What do you think about her?
53:48Oh, love her.
53:49Also, LeBron took a picture with my book the other day and put it out, which just out of
53:54nowhere.
53:55I mean, I don't even know LeBron like that.
53:58I just love and respect him.
53:59But great.
54:00Kaitlyn Clarke, amazing.
54:03I think about this all the time, and I'm good friends with Candace Parker and different
54:09women's basketball players.
54:11My sister is two years younger than I am, 54.
54:14She was a great athlete.
54:16But there were really women's sports at the time.
54:20A lot of women had to play in men's, you know, on the boys team, play boys little league
54:26and all that stuff.
54:28What these women are doing, and my sister didn't have WNBA players to look up to.
54:36There was no such thing.
54:38Now the girls and the women, the young girls have these idols like Candace Parker and Kaitlyn
54:47Clarke to look up to and forget the sport part of it.
54:51The best times I've ever had in my life are on the back of a bus with my teammates, flying
54:58across the country with my teammates.
54:59We deprived young women of that for a long time.
55:03And now I'm just looking and I see all the heroes that these young ladies have to look
55:08up to.
55:09I have three daughters.
55:12My daughters are growing up in a different world than my sister grew up in, and I couldn't
55:16be happier about that.
55:18Well, Rex Chapman, it's been great talking with you.
55:22Thank you for being so comforting because this is a tough subject and subject matters
55:29are tough to discuss.
55:31And I just really appreciate your care and kindness.
55:34Well, thank you, Rex Chapman.
55:35Thank you so much.
55:36Thanks, Michelle.
55:38And that's it for our program tonight.
55:40If you want to find out what's coming up on the show every night, sign up for our newsletter
55:44at PBS.org slash Amanpour.
55:46Thanks for watching and goodbye for now.