Interview with Admiral Locklear

Collin Stewart: Admiral Locklear, thank you for joining us so we can ask you a few questions
based on the US taking a stand against Saddam Hussein. To begin, we would like to have a little
background about your position in the Navy, how many years you served, and what effect this
position has in the Navy.
Admiral: Sure, so I joined the Navy when I was 17 and I retired when I was 61. So I was in the
Navy for just about 43-44 years. I rose through that time through many years on ships and
aircraft carriers and rose to the rank of an admiral. I was admiral for 15 years. And as it relates to
your project, when the Gulf war or the Iraq war, which I was in almost every campaign we had in
the middle east, but when we went to operation Iraqi freedom and I think in 2003, I was a onestar admiral and I was the commander of the Nimitz strike group who was in Iraq in the
beginning of the war and throughout that war. I later became a three star in charge of a fleet and
then when I was a four star when I was in Europe, I ran the campaign in Libya against Gaddafi
and then I went to the pacific, and the last three or so years I was the pacific commander in
charge of all the unified military forces, not just the navy but all of them, Navy, Marine Corps,
Air Force, Army, In the Pacific.
Collin Stewart: Can we ask a few questions about Saddam Hussein involving the Iraq war?
Admiral: Sure
Collin Stewart: We would like to know why there was a need to remove Hussein from power and
why he was a threat to our country?
Admiral: Well, as I recall the buildup to the removal of Saddam Hussein took several decades. It
wasnt a split second decision. Saddam Hussein was a known dictator, in the middle East, and
had dictator aspirations beyond the borders of what was then Iraq. he also had oil reserves in Iraq
that gave him money. But he also had a very heavy handed position with his people, so if you
look back through history you'll find that Saddam Hussein committed all kinds of atrocities
against humanity, he gassed his own people. We as an international community the United
Nations, over the years put many UN security sanctions against him both economic and military,
and then for several years we did no fly zones because we were so concerned that he was hurting
his own people that we did not let any airplanes fly over Iraq. So throughout that time, he
continued to kind of consolidate power, he invaded at Kuwait before desert storm, which I was
there in the 90s. He believed that Kuwait was a historic part of Iraq, but primarily what he
wanted to do was to expand and reach into the oil fields, and once he invaded and occupied Iraq
in the early 90s, then George Bush Senior, President 41 as we call him, ordered desert storm
which basically effectively removed Saddam Hussein from Kuwait, and sent the Iraqi army
packing back into Iraq. President Bush at that time was criticized for not going all the way to
Baghdad and deposing Saddam Hussein at that time. So it rolled on for another decade or so,
then the second George Bush, 43, came in. There was this sense, or intelligence, or feeling that
there were weapons of mass destruction being developed, and it was also on the heels of the 9/11
attack on this country. So there was I think a consensus both in the administration inside the

military and inside the intelligence organization that he posed a threat to the destabilization in the
oil rich, he posed a threat to his people, and he was a potential threat to the American people
because of his lack of control or lack of ethical control of the region, and that he might be a
funder, financier, and a supporter of terrorist groups that were getting started, as we saw in 9/11.
This didnt happen overnight, there were a lot of years build up to this, and in the end he was
disposed, and then history then moved on from there
Collin Stewart: With all of these atrocities and terrible things that Saddam Hussein did, what is
your personal opinion of Saddam Hussein, how do you view him?
Admiral: I think its easy in the world we are in today to just say, well we wouldve been better
off with Saddam Hussein there, we wouldnt have had the follow on collapse of Iraq, we
wouldnt have all the issues we are having in the Middle East. I dont believe that is true. I
believe that the time, and I still believe that we are America, we are a benevolent country that
supports freedom of people globally, that we have a pretty strong view about human rights, and
we have a very strong view about weapons of mass destruction. Including chemical, biological,
and nuclear weapons and the control of those because when those things are made and get into
the wrong hands they become a threat to Baltimore and Washington, not just to people in the
Middle East. So to say in retrospect that it would have been better to have Saddam Hussein
remain in power, I think is a naive first world decision by Americans who dont live in the kind
of environment that Iraqis live in under Saddam Hussein. So he needed to go, dictators who gas
their own people have no place in leadership of people anywhere in the world. Now would it
have been more stable with him in place? I seriously doubt it, at some point he would have done
something more stupid. I was personally glad to see him deposed, but follow on I think the
complexities of the Middle East and Iraq which really has never been a country of any real sub
consequences. Its really a division of three different ethnic groups or religions. So its a division
between Kurds in the North, the Shia Iranian back in the West, and the Sunni are basically Saudi
in the West. So thats basically what you have today, you have those three partitions of Iraq that
are kind of happening de facto, post Saddam Hussein.
Collin Stewart: Based on your opinion of Saddam Hussein, do you feel that his threat ended with
his death, and are there any long lasting effects of his removal?
Admiral: Well sure, there are long lasting effects. If you didnt think there would be any long
lasting effects, you wouldnt remove him. So I think in a positive side there is a better autonomy
inside of Northern Iraq. So the Kurds are not being gassed anymore, they pretty much control
their parts of the oil fields, they are pretty much quality actors in the North, and so I think they
were the benefactors. Post Saddam Hussein allowed for the Shia to reemerge as a power factor in
Iraq because Saddam Hussein was a Sunni, and he suppressed Shias, and this was frustrating for
the Iranians. If you go back and look at the years prior to the removal of Saddam Hussein, there
was the war that Iraq had with Iran. One of the most terrible things was that hundreds of
thousands of people were killed, most of them young Iranians unfortunately. Was their benefit to
him leaving? Sure, there is always a downside to change though, and you dont know what it is
going to look like on the other side. You can guess, and you can put things in place to prepare.
Maybe if you look back and say well did the Bush administration plan adequately for the days

following the fall of Saddam Hussein, history would say they didnt. They probably would have
disagreed with you at the time, but hindsight isn't always 20/20.
Collin Stewart: That answers most of the questions that we have for you, thank you for your time
Admiral, we really appreciate it.
Admiral: I hope this helps and best of luck. It is important to go back and assess these things and
to look at them. This whole issue with the invasion of Iraq in 2002, 2003, has become politicized
in this country for political gain on either side of the Republican and Democratic parties because
it didnt turn out well after he was gone. So theyve all tried to back away from the problem. I
think at the time, if you were to go back and not knowing what you know now about post Iraq,
most people in this country, in the military, and in congress wouldve said, yeah its time for
Saddam Hussein to go, and thats what happened.
Collin Stewart: Thank you so much for your time
Admiral: Alright, best of luck on your project and keep charging.