Ex-CIA director: U.S. faces 'World War IV'
From Charles Feldman and Stan Wilson
CNN
Thursday, April 3, 2003 Posted: 5:02 PM EST (2202 GMT)
<http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/04/03/sprj.irq.woolsey.world.war/index.html>

Former CIA Director James Woolsey

LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) -- Former CIA Director James Woolsey said
Wednesday the United States is engaged in World War IV, and that it could
continue for years.

In the address to a group of college students, Woolsey described the Cold
War as the third world war and said "This fourth world war, I think, will
last considerably longer than either World Wars I or II did for us.
Hopefully not the full four-plus decades of the Cold War."

Woolsey has been named in news reports as a possible candidate for a key
position in the reconstruction of a postwar Iraq.

He said the new war is actually against three enemies: the religious
rulers of Iran, the "fascists" of Iraq and Syria, and Islamic extremists
like al Qaeda.

Woolsey told the audience of about 300, most of whom are students at the
University of California at Los Angeles, that all three enemies have waged
war against the United States for several years but the United States has
just "finally noticed."

"As we move toward a new Middle East," Woolsey said, "over the years and,
I think, over the decades to come ... we will make a lot of people very
nervous."

It will be America's backing of democratic movements throughout the Middle
East that will bring about this sense of unease, he said.

"Our response should be, 'good!'" Woolsey said.

Singling out Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and the leaders of Saudi
Arabia, he said, "We want you nervous. We want you to realize now, for the
fourth time in a hundred years, this country and its allies are on the
march and that we are on the side of those whom you -- the Mubaraks, the
Saudi Royal family -- most fear: We're on the side of your own people."

Woolsey, who served as CIA director under President Bill Clinton, was
taking part in a "teach-in" at UCLA, a series of such forums at
universities across the nation.

A group calling itself "Americans for Victory Over Terrorism" sponsors the
teach-ins, and the Bruin Republicans, UCLA's campus Republicans
organization, co-sponsored Wednesday night's event.

The group was founded by former Education Secretary William Bennett, who
took part in Wednesday's event along with Paul Bremer, a U.S. ambassador
during the Reagan administration and the former chairman of the National
Commission on Terrorism.