Mr. Blumenauer: Mr. Speaker, thank you for the opportunity to offer my support for Mr. Spratt's Amendment to the proposed Joint resolution. Its emphasis--on international action, the role of the United Nations and diplomatic means to achieve full compliance with multinational efforts to destroy Iraq's capability to produce and deliver weapons of mass destruction--is exactly right.
This amendment includes key elements of the proposal for compulsory arms inspections put forward by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace to the House International Relations Committee. I was impressed with the wisdom of that third approach then, and I am now.
This Amendment recognizes and honors Congress' role in the initiation of war and in monitoring its conduct. It rightly places our actions within a broader multi-lateral framework and calls on the international community, particularly Arab and Islamic countries, to work with the United States in the post-conflict reconstruction of Iraq.
For all these reasons, I urge adoption of the Amendment offered by the gentleman from South Carolina.
Mr. Levin: Mr. Speaker, the more one hears of this debate in Congress and among the American people, the more puzzling it is that the approach in the Spratt resolution was not adopted.
The Spratt Resolution states clearly the need to act to totally disarm Saddam Hussein of his weapons of mass destruction.
It authorized the Use of U.S. Armed Forces within the framework of international collective action as embodied in U.N. Security Council resolutions seeking to disarm Iraq and providing for force by member states to ensure compliance.
If that collective international effort fails, the Spratt resolution spelled out an expedited procedure for the President to seek the authorization to proceed unilaterally in a war against Iraq.
So, why not the Spratt resolution?
It would have far more effectively achieved the goal of the President that we speak today with one voice.
The approach in the Spratt resolution would have maximized the chances of success in disarming Saddam Hussein and minimized the potential adverse consequences for the U.S. in going it alone, in terms of reactions throughout the world, stability in the region, cooperation in the war against terrorism and in broad participation in the aftermath of a war in Iraq.
It would keep the pressure on the U.N. to act, avoiding the inconsistency in the Administration's approach of saying to the U.N. "act," "be relevant," "hold Iraq to account" but potentially taking it off the hook in advance because the U.S. will go it alone.
While emphasizing collective action, the Spratt alternative explicitly did not bind the U.S. to whatever is done by the U.N., but leaves the U.S. what it must have, final say over its policies and actions. We are not ceding to the U.N. We are leading the world as the remaining superpower.
So why not Spratt?
Because its emphasis is on achieving collective action rather than proceeding unilaterally. The resistance of the Administration to that approach is consistent with the general strategy laid out in its new doctrine stated a few weeks ago, our use of pre-emptive first strikes in situations short of imminent danger with only cursory effort to proceed collectively. It is that very backdrop for the Administration's approach on Iraq that should make us all pause.
Or, because Spratt does state clearly the objective is total disarmament of all weapons of mass destruction. While sometimes implying otherwise, the President's speech earlier this week make clear that the Administration sine qua non is regime change, whatever the success in disarming Saddam Hussein. That also must give us pause.
We should not blur these important differences.
These are the reasons that I voted for the Spratt resolution and opposed the Administration's resolution.
Mr. Tauzin: Mr. Speaker, today I rise in support of the bipartisan resolution to authorize the use of military force against Iraq.
When President Bush addressed the nation following the terrorist attacks of September 11th, he made it entirely clear that the United States would not tolerate nations that harbor terrorists. Like the President, I believe a nation that provides a safe-haven for the likes of al-Qaeda is no different than the terrorist themselves. We know Saddam Hussein harbors terrorists in Iraq, funds terrorist training camps, and supports the families of suicide bombers.
He possesses and continues to develop biological and chemical weapons and seeks to build a nuclear bomb. We know he will try to use this bomb against the United States or our allies if he gets his hands on one. He already has unleashed biological and chemical weapons upon his own people, killing thousands. What more do we need to know? We must stand ready to take action before it is too late.
I want to make clear to every American, especially the folks in my home state of Louisiana, that this decision to possibly send our young service men and women into harms way is not about settling unfinished business. Nor is it about oil or taking control of Iraqi oil fields. This is about a grave and present threat against our people, today.
Saddam Hussein is a tyrannical dictator who hates America and who will use any means possible to attack us if given the opportunity. We cannot allow Saddam that opportunity. Our only option is to take every precaution to ensure the safety of our citizens.
Whether the next direct threat against the United States comes in the form of retaliation from Iraq or from any other terrorist entity, we must be prepared for the possibility of a biological or chemical attack against Americans, here or abroad. Today, I can say with confidence that America's public health emergency system is better prepared to respond to such an attack as a result of the comprehensive bioterrorism preparedness bill that I worked hard to help write and enact.
This sweeping legislation, signed into law by the President in June, dramatically improves our nation's ability to respond swiftly and effectively to new and emerging terrorist threats. This major milestone covers everything from public health preparedness and improvements, to enhancing controls on deadly biological agents, to protecting our food, drug, and drinking water supplies and improving communications between all levels of government, public health officials, first responders and health providers.
Mr. Speaker, this threat to our national security is one we can conquer. We have the means, and I believe as the President does that "we must act now before waiting for final proof--the smoking gun--that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud."
Mr. Ose: Mr. Speaker, my greatest responsibility as a Member of Congress is to protect America against all enemies, foreign and domestic. This responsibility includes taking preemptive action, if necessary, to protect our homeland and national security interests. On September 14, 2001, Congress adopted a resolution that authorized the President to take such action.
Iraq must follow the terms it agreed to at the end of the Gulf War, cease its attacks on U.S. and other peacekeepers in the region, end its promotion of terrorism and weapons of mass destruction, and end its persecution of its own people. Should Iraq continue to ignore the 12 U.N. Resolutions and the agreements he made at the end of the Gulf War, I will support President Bush in the actions he sees necessary to ensure the safety of our citizens, as well as our allies and interests abroad. The vote today makes clear to Saddam Hussein that time for Iraq to finally meet the requirements of the international community has run out.
Mr. Simpson: Mr. Speaker, I want to take just a few minutes to outline my thoughts on the Resolution before the House today and the reasons why I have decided I must vote in its favor.
Throughout the past few months, I have been supportive of efforts that would allow our nation to first pursue Iraq's compliance with existing U.N. resolutions and eventually engage our allies in a united effort to force a regime change in Iraq. Early discussions and versions of the Congressional Resolution on which we are about to vote had very broad authorities for the President associated with the threat posed by Iraq--something that caused concern for me and many of my colleagues on both sides of the political aisle.
As more evidence of Iraq's growing ability to develop and deliver weapons of mass destruction has emerged, I think it is clear that the patience required to avoid armed conflict must be balanced against the severe and catastrophic consequences of waiting too long to act. We simply cannot wait to act, either with the United Nations or unilaterally, until Iraq actually uses its weapons of mass destruction against its enemies or completes its development of a working nuclear weapon. I believe a recent dossier on Iraq, written by the British Government, clearly illustrates the threat posed by Saddam Hussein. Among its findings were the following:
Iraq has continued to develop chemical and biological weapons, including anthrax, mustard gas, sarin nerve gas, and VX nerve gas;
Iraq has military plans for the use of chemical and biological weapons, some of which are deployable within 45 minutes;
Iraq has developed mobile laboratories for the production of biological weapons;
Iraq has tried to covertly acquire technology and materials for use in the production of nuclear weapons;
Iraq has sought uranium from South Africa despite having no active civil nuclear power program that might need it;
Iraq is in various stages of development and deployment of a number of missile systems capable of delivering weapons of mass destruction over vast distances; and
Iraq has learned a great deal from past experiences with weapons inspections and has undertaken an aggressive program to conceal sensitive equipment and documentation in the event weapons inspectors return in the future.
To even the most cynical critic of armed conflict, these realities have to represent a clear and present danger to the security of the middle-east and an undeniable threat to the security interests of the United States.
I think it is also important to note that the development and possession of these weapons of mass destruction by Iraq are in direct violation of international law. Iraq, under a variety of U.N. resolutions, is required to destroy its vast inventory of these weapons under the supervision of the United Nations. Sadly, this is not the only way in which Iraq has violated its international obligations. In 2002 alone, Iraqi forces have fired on U.S. and British pilots 406 times and continue this hostility every day. In addition, recently released classified photos shows Iraq rebuilding its weapons factories and U.S. National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice recently revealed that Iraq provided training to al-Qaida in chemical weapons development and trained terrorists--information corroborated in the British Dossier.
I want to commend President Bush and leaders of both parties of Congress, including House Speaker Dennis J. Hastert and House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt, for working together, setting political differences aside, and drafting the Resolution before us today. I firmly believe this Resolution provides the President the authority he needs to protect the American people and the rest of the world from Saddam Hussein's growing appetite for weapons of mass destruction-- including nuclear weapons. At the same time, the Resolution leaves open the possibility for a peaceful end to this international crisis and places the responsibility for avoiding armed conflict directly on Saddam Hussein. His actions over the coming weeks will determine whether the United States, Great Britain, and a number of our allies are forced to act to protect the world from his own aggression.
Specifically, the Resolution:
Authorizes the President to defend the U.S. by military force against threats from Iraq, and enforce existing U.N. Security Council resolutions;
Requires the President to determine that further diplomacy initiatives will not adequately protect our national security;
Requires a report to Congress at least every 60 days on the status of efforts to protect the U.S.;
Authorizes action by the President consistent with the War Powers Resolution; and
Contains a sense of Congress resolution supporting the President's efforts to obtain a U.N. Security Council resolution to ensure that Iraq immediately complies with all relevant Security Council resolutions.
I want to report that this Resolution is not the blank check for war that some of its opponents are portraying it to be. In fact, this Resolution leaves plenty of room for a peaceful resolution to this conflict, urges cooperation with the United Nations and our allies, and ensures Congress's constitutional role is protected.
While I have been a proponent of seeking the participation of our allies in any action we might take against Iraq, I think it is important to remember that we have the right to act unilaterally in the defense of our nation and its interests. This resolution protects that right while recognizing the importance of securing the cooperation of the international community.
Although I feel it is regrettable that we are now at a point where we must consider armed conflict with Iraq to protect the world from its aggression, it is impossible to ignore any longer the devastating risks of continued inaction. Saddam Hussein is solely responsible for bringing the United States and the international community to this point. While I remain hopeful we can find a peaceful resolution to this dispute, the overwhelming body of evidence points to only one conclusion--Saddam Hussein must be disarmed immediately through either his actions or our own.
For that reason, Mr. Speaker, I will vote in support of the Resolution before us today and stand behind President Bush in his efforts to protect our nation from the horrors Saddam Hussein seems committed to unleashing on his enemies and the world.
Mr. Holt: Mr. Speaker, this past Sunday during a pancake breakfast at a firehouse in my hometown, one of my constituents sat down with me. "Why have we gotten into this headlong rush into war," he asked? Why haven't we first exhausted all the other possibilities for dealing with Saddam?" His questions reflected both my feelings and those of so many other Americans: Where is the pressing need to send our Nation, our servicemen and women, into a potentially bloody, costly war that could threaten rather than strengthen our national security?
I will vote "no" on this resolution.
It is true that Saddam Hussein has for years presented a threat to his own people, to the Middle East, to the world. His relentless pursuit of weapons of mass destruction is unconscionable. We have a legal and a moral obligation to hold him accountable for his flagrant violation of international law and his maniacal disregard for human decency.
I applaud the President for refocusing international attention on the Iraqi threat. This is something that I have followed with concern since I worked in the State Department 15 years ago on nuclear nonproliferation. However, I believe it is at the least premature, and more likely contrary to our national interest, for Congress to authorize military action against Iraq now.
As I reviewed the arguments for and against this resolution, I found myself returning repeatedly to some basic questions. Would unilateral American military action against Iraq reduce the threat that Saddam Hussein poses? In other words, would a Saddam facing certain destruction be less likely or more likely to unleash his weapons of mass destruction on his neighbors, his own people, or on Americans? Will an attack against Iraq strengthen or weaken our more pressing effort to combat al Qaeda and global terrorism? Will it bolster our ability to promote our many other national security interests around the world and make Americans more secure? I believe the answer to all of these questions is a resounding no.
Why should we undertake action that makes more likely the very thing we want to prevent? A cornered Saddam Hussein could release his arsenal of chemical, biological, and possible nuclear weapons on American soldiers or on his neighbors in the region, including Israel. The CIA recently reported that Iraq is more likely to initiate a chemical or biological attack on the United States if Saddam concludes that a U.S.- led invasion can no longer be deterred.
In addition, I am also concerned that a unilateral American invasion of Iraq would send a destabilizing shockwave throughout the Middle East and ignite violent anti-Americanism, giving rise to future threats to our national security. While I have no doubt that we can successfully depose Saddam Hussein, I am concerned that the act of extinguishing Saddam would inflame, rather than diminish, the terrorist threat to the United States. And the ensuing anti-American sentiment could reinvigorate the terrorists' pursuit of the loose nuclear weapons in the former Soviet Union--a greater threat than Iraq, I might add, one that American has largely neglected.
The Administration has tried and failed to prove that Saddam's regime is a grave and immediate threat to American security. It has also simply failed to explain to the American public what our responsibilities would be in a post-Saddam Iraq. How will we guarantee the security of our soldiers and the Iraqi people? How will we guarantee the success of a democratic transition? How many hundreds of billions of dollars would it cost to rebuild Iraq?
This resolution would give the President a blank check, in the words of many of my constituents, and would allow him to use Iraq to launch a new military and diplomatic doctrine. By taking unilateral, preemptive military action against Iraq, we would set a dangerous precedent that would threaten the international order.
Instead, we can and should take the lead in eliminating the threat posed by Saddam Hussein not by taking unilateral military action. If we consult actively with our allies in the region, with NATO, with the U.N. Security Council, we will be able to undertake effective inspections and end Saddam's threat. I do not believe that we need the permission of our allies to take action, but I do believe that we need their partnership to be successful in the long run.
As the world's leading power, we should use the full diplomatic force at our disposal to work with our allies to get inspectors back into Iraq without any preconditions--including access to Saddam's presidential palaces. We can and we will disarm Iraq and end Saddam's threat. The United Nations and the international community may recognize the need to take military action. The American people will understand and be prepared for that possibility. Now, they are not. Now, they are saying that, for the United States, war should and must always be our last resort.
Mr. Maloney of Connecticut Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the Spratt substitute to H.J. Res. 114, the Hastert/Gephardt resolution authorizing military action against Iraq. Nearly all of us agree that Saddam Hussein is a mass murderer who is in control of biological and chemical weapons of mass destruction--and reaching for nuclear weapons as well. The Spratt substitute recognizes the grave threat that Saddam Hussein poses to security in the Middle East and around the world. The Spratt substitute authorizes the use of force through a prudent multinational approach. In contrast, the Hastert/Gephardt resolution, which I will oppose, authorizes unilateral military action on the part of the United States without first making sure that all possible steps have been taken to organize multinational, world-wide support against Saddam Hussein.
I also note that I am opposed to the substitute amendment offered by Representative Lee of California, but for the opposite reason. That resolution does not re-enforce our commitment to wage the critically important War on Terrorism, nor does it set out any path that would require Saddam Hussein to rid his regime of weapons of mass destruction. While it is clearly a mistake to act in haste, it would be an even worse mistake to not act at all.
As Connecticut's senior member on the House Armed Services Committee, as well as a member of the Committee's Special Oversight Panel on Terrorism, I want to share my deep concern regarding four key issues relating to the Hastert/Gephardt resolution on Iraq.
First, it would be a fundamental abdication of American leadership if, before taking action against Iraq, we don't make every effort to bring the family of nations with us, just as we did in the first Gulf War, and have done in the War on Terrorism. Unilateral action by this nation against Iraq raises very disturbing issues, including the reaction of other Arab states, which could further destabilize the Middle East, incite further terrorist hatred against us, and even potentially metastasize the Middle East conflict into the ongoing nuclear standout between Pakistan and India. Only a cohesive multinational approach, most preferably under the authority of the United Nations, would minimize these risks.
Second, it seems unlikely that unilateral war with Iraq can be carried out without an adverse impact on the War on Terrorism. America certainly has the ability to do militarily almost anything it wants. The issue is prudence not capability. As President Abraham Lincoln said during the middle of the American Civil War, when England was looking to pick a fight with the United States, it is best to fight "One war at a time." We have successfully built a global coalition to fight terrorism. Many nations, some even traditionally hostile to our interests, have assisted in our efforts to destroy the al Qa'ida network, and bring to justice the perpetrators of the September 11 attacks. This work should remain the first priority of national security. A unilateral attack on Iraq will destroy that coalition, and make it much more difficult--perhaps even impossible--for us to complete our anti-terrorism efforts. Many Arab nations would break with our coalition, and nations like Russia and China, even France, might well follow suit.
Third, a less than fully multinational approach increases the chance that Saddam Hussein will use weapons of mass destruction against us. In a letter dated October 7, 2002, to the Senate Intelligence Committee, the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency said, "Saddam might decide that the extreme step of assisting Islamist terrorists in conducting a WMD attack against the United States would be his last chance to exact vengeance by taking a large number of victims with him." Should we act unilaterally, the United States would expose ourselves to the greatly increased likelihood of a weapons of mass destruction attack. Saddam Hussein cannot achieve the same kind of "vengeance" in attacking a coalition that includes fellow Arab states. We can best mitigate the threat of Saddam Hussein using weapons of mass destruction against us by having our actions endorsed by the U.N. Security Council and by operating in cooperation with the nations of the region. That is also the strategy that appears to be most likely to produce a resolution of the matter without Saddam Hussein using force of any kind. Saddam Hussein, facing a united, determined opposition coalition of nations would be more likely to assent to real inspections and disarmament if his only alternative was total defeat, including his being stripped of the ability to single out the United States for vengeance.
Fourth, and finally, we need a clear exit strategy for any military engagement. The commitment to disarm Iraq and oust Saddam Hussein brings with it, according to the best military estimates, at least a decade of occupation and engagement in the stability and security of that country. I have great pride and confidence in our military and its capabilities, but there is a large danger in devoting them to such a huge task while other major threats still persist around the world, including North Korea and Iran, the other two nations of the "Axis of Evil." Operating in conjunction with the United Nations will provide our forces with such a clear exit strategy. Specifically, U.N. peacekeeping forces will be put in place following the liberation of Iraq. The U.N. can then help bring Iraq back into the community of law- abiding nations, which is a task properly and fully within its mission.
I have based these decisions on the series of briefings I have attended as a member of the House Armed Services Committee, numerous conversations with constituents and my colleagues, and my own best judgment of what is patriotically both in the long and short-term interests of our country. I have listened intently to all sides in the debate, most recently meeting this morning with Secretary Rumsfeld at the Pentagon.
Having carried out the due consideration that this issue demands, I conclude that I cannot support the Hastert/Gephardt resolution that would allow a pre-emptive unilateral attack without requiring that every effort at a multinational approach had been exhausted. I therefore urge my colleagues to join me in supporting the strong, but prudent and responsible, Spratt substitute that authorizes the use of force, but assures that such force (1) is carried out in concurrence with the community of nations, or (2) failing to secure such concurrence, is specifically authorized in the cold light of a future day reserved for that purpose. Any more open-ended resolution, including that offered by Speaker Hastert and Leader Gephardt, does not provide the thorough, specific review and deliberation that the authorization of war demands of the Congress of the United States.
I conclude by expressing my heartfelt appreciation, shared by my colleagues on all sides of this debate, for our men and women in uniform. Whatever the decision made today, I stand in full support of our dedicated and courageous service men and women who may well soon find themselves in harm's way. As a member of the Armed Services Committee, I re-affirm to them, and all Americans, my commitment to make sure that they continue to be the best trained, best equipped, and best led military force in the world. I pray them God's speed and protection in all that they do.
Mr. Houghton: Mr. Speaker, this is an important--no, a critical debate. It is right that we have it. I stand here as one who enlisted in the Marine Corps in 1994, voted for Desert Storm, and has always believed that the first federal dollar spent each year should go to the military. These men and women provide for our ultimately security. However, I am prepared to vote against this particular resolution. It will not be a happy vote. I will be in the minority. I sadly will not stand with my President, a man I admire so much. Yet as with literally the thousands of votes cast in this chamber, I've found that following one's instinct is the most honest, if not always the most politically popular, approach. What we're discussing is all unknown territory. We're talking about the future--and that talk, out of necessity, means guesses, estimates, and personal interpretation. The one thing we do know is that since September 11, 2001, we are living in a new world. It's an unsettling world requiring different defenses--secrecy, stealth operations, armies without uniforms--but maybe of greatest importance, an adhesive-like working relationship with our friends. Following 9/11 we were told that the enemy was terrorism in all its forms. The al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden would be hunted down, Afghanistan was to be stabilized and rebuilt, and we were to work closely with our allies and near-allies. We could not go it alone. Now we hear that priorities have changed. Iraq is the prime target. Saddam Hussein is a heinous criminal, with frightening weapons. And I believe all that. But the question remains: what does this have to do with terrorism, our original objective? There is little evidence that Iraq had anything to do with 9/11. I happen to be a hawk on Iraq. Saddam Hussein is a disturbed, dangerous leader. We should deal with him. But absent any immediate threat, our eye ought to be on the security of the American people. The fight is against terrorism in all the emerging subtle forms and that has little to do with Saddam Hussein. So without finishing what we started and with no sure knowledge that he is near producing nuclear weapons, why is it that within the last few months we recalibrate our objectives? War would be hugely costly. We already are in deep deficit. We are not backed by the essential allies, and we could easily unleash additional terrorism. Last weekend I spent a whole day with Jewish and Palestinian representatives. One Arab comment was, "The Iraqis hate Saddam Hussein, but remember they hate the United States more." Iraq is one of the few secular countries in the Middle East. Unleashing, without careful ground work, the hatred of two mortal internal enemies--the Sunnis and the Shi'ites--could produce another angry fundamentalist state. The bill in front of us says, "The President is authorized to use the Armed Forces of the United States as he determines to be necessary and appropriate . . ." I have the greatest respect for the President. And you know what? He may be right. But I am given the opportunity to express my opinion and to cast my vote. I feel uncertain at this time, in this place, sanctioning that authority. Unilateralism scares me. We haven't shown a lot of patience since the President's speech to the U.N. Our historic rule of thumb has been to bring people together, not divide them. This war will not be a cake walk. People fight differently in defense of their homeland, their families. I worry about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and our lack of attention to it. I think we've got the cart before the horse. Let the U.N. first work its will. Finally, Mr. Speaker, a right decision at the wrong time is a wrong decision. Why don't we win the war against terrorism before we start another fight?Mr. Putnam Mr. Speaker, during this Congress I have been honored to serve as Vice Chairman of the Government Reform Committee's Subcommittee on National Security, Veterans Affairs and International Relations. Under Chairman Shays' leadership our Subcommittee has conducted at least 14 hearings and briefings, many of them well before September 11, 2001, which addressed in some measure the threat from the proliferation of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons.
Congress has recently conducted hearings on who missed the signals leading to 9/11. The signals of the potential for an even greater catastrophe have been writ large before our subcommittee over the past two years of testimony. These hearings provided ample evidence establishing that Iraq is one of the premier consumers--if not the-- premier consumer of the components and precursors of weapons of mass destruction. This unprecedented build-up serves no positive purpose, but rather demonstrates an attempt to dominate the region and threaten our peaceful interests. Let me share with you just a few examples:
1. Iraq is seeking to purchase chemical weapons agent precursors and applicable production equipment, and is making an effort to hide activities at the Fallujah plant, which was one of Iraq's chemical weapons production facilities before the Gulf War.
2. At Fallujah and three other plants, Iraq now has chlorine production capacity far higher than any civilian need for water treatment, and the evidence indicates that some of its chlorine imports are being diverted for military purposes.
3. Saddam Hussein is continuing to seek and develop biological weapons. In 2001, an Iraqi defector, Adnan Ihsan Saeed al-Haideri, said he had visited twenty secret facilities for chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. Mr. Saeed, a civil engineer, supported his claims with stacks of Iraqi government contracts, complete with technical specifications.
4. Saddam Hussein is continuing to seek and develop nuclear weapons. A new repot released on September 9, 2002, from the International Institute for Strategic Studies--an independent research organization-- concludes that Saddam Hussein could build a nuclear bomb within months if he were able to obtain fissile material.
5. Saddam Hussein is continuing to seek and develop prohibited long- range, ballistic missiles. Iraq is believed to be developing ballistic missiles with a range greater than 150 kilometers--as prohibited by the U.N. Security Council Resolution 687. Discrepancies identified by UNSCOM in Saddam Hussein's declarations suggest that Iraq retains a small force of Scud-type missiles and an undetermined number of launchers and warheads.
6. There is ample evidence that Saddam Hussein is using his Presidential palace sites to hide prohibited WMD and missile technologies. In December 1997 Richard Butler reported to the U.N. Security Council that Iraq had created a new category of sites, "Presidential" and "sovereign" from which it claimed that UNSCOM inspectors would henceforth be barred. The terms of the ceasefire in 1991 foresaw no such limitations. However, Iraq consistently refused to allow UNSCOM inspectors access to any of these eight Presidential sites. Many of these so-called "palaces" are in fact large compounds, which are an integral part of Iraqi counter-measures designed to hide prohibited weapons and material.
7. To implement the agreement that ended the gulf war the United Nations Security Council passed a number of resolutions demanding that President Saddam Hussein stop pursuing weapons of mass destruction and allow inspectors total access to his country to verify his compliance. In 1998 Saddam Hussein suspended cooperation with the U.N. inspectors. The U.N. General Assembly has subsequently failed to enforce the sixteen (16) existing Security Council Resolutions that Iraq has violated. While the United States is working with our allies to craft yet another resolution for consideration by the Security Council, it should be noted that the Saddam Hussein regime has already rejected this proposal before it has even been brought before the Security Council.
Mr. Speaker, this is a particularly difficult decision for me, because I recognize that it is largely the men and women of my generation, those in their twenties or younger, who will fight this war--if war comes. Today, Marine Lance Cpl. Antonio J. Sledd, 20 rests in honor under our flag somewhere between Kuwait and his home in Hillsborough County, Florida. We would be remiss in our responsibilities if we do not acknowledge that there will be a cost, and there is a price being paid this very day, by America's young defenders and their families.
Opponents of military action against Iraq argue that until it is clear that Iraq poses an imminent threat, the United States should continue to contain and deter Saddam Hussein. Our hearings have demonstrated that Saddam Hussein is not deterred, and that the threat posed by his regime's continued pursuit of weapons of mass destruction and missile technology is in fact imminent. Today, we are at the point, very much as the democracies of the world once were in their great confrontation with Hitler, where we have a choice to confront or appease an aggressor. I intend to vote in favor of House Joint Resolution 114 and support President Bush in his decision to confront Saddam Hussein and end the threat to the United States, and the world, posed by Iraq's development of weapons of mass destruction.
Mr. Hilleary Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of the Hastert- Gephardt Iraq resolution, in opposition to the Spratt and Lee amendments, and in strong support of our President.
I do not take this action lightly. No one enjoys the idea of placing sons and daughters of America in harm's way. Twelve years ago, while serving as an Air Force C-130 navigator, I was one of those troops on the receiving end of a resolution like this one. I know it was an agonizing decision for many members of Congress. I know many members are struggling with this resolution here today. And I have received phone calls, letters, and emails from many concerned Tennesseans on both sides of this issue.
To all of them, I would offer the advice Margaret Thatcher gave President George H.W. Bush in 1990: "Now is no time to get wobbly." The resolution Congress passed before Desert Storm was right, both for America and for the world. This one is too.
The Spratt amendment and the Lee amendment would each tie the President's hands, subjecting U.S. foreign policy to the dictates of the U.N. Security Council. United Nations opposition to removing the corrupt Iraqi regime in 1991 is a major reason why we're here today. I am not comfortable with China, Russia, and France having a veto on American security decisions. America is a peaceful nation, but when our freedom and security have been challenged in the past, we have consistently done whatever it took to protect our way of life. We are challenged again today, and America must take the lead against this tyranny.
I take issue with those who call any action in Iraq "a preemptive strike". It is surely not. For Saddam, the gulf war has never ended. In the past two years, forces at his command have fired over 1,600 times at American and British planes patrolling the no-fly zone Saddam agreed to at the end of the gulf war. They've fired at our pilots more than 60 times since September 18th, the day Saddam promised to "allow the return of United Nations inspectors without conditions."
By using chemical weapons to kill thousands of his own people, Saddam has proven his ruthlessness. In invading Iran and Kuwait, he has shown his inclination toward aggression and his ambition for dominating the region. In violating 16 United Nations resolutions, he has consistently lied to the world and refused to allow the Iraqi people to join the ranks of civilized nations.
Now, financed by his immense oil wealth, Saddam has relentlessly pursued building nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. These weapons in the hands of a ruthless tyrant like Saddam Hussein present a direct threat we cannot ignore. He could launch an attack on Israel that plunges many nations into war. He could also use them as blackmail as he pursues domination of the Middle East. But his main threat to America is as a supplier.
Intelligence reports have indicated that Saddam's people have been in contact with al-Qaeda operatives. We know they share a common interest in harming America and the West. If Saddam provides al-Qaeda with the weapons of mass destruction they desire but cannot make themselves, they will find a way to transport those weapons into this country. And the magnitude of the subsequent attack and its casualties would rival or exceed anything we experienced on September 11th, December 7th, or any other tragic date in our history.
Remember President Bush's words from his State of the Union speech earlier this year. "America will do what is necessary to ensure our Nation's security. We will be deliberate, yet time is not on our side. I will not wait on events, while dangers gather. I will not stand by, as peril draws closer and closer. The United States of America will not permit the world's most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world's most destructive weapons."
President Bush and his national security team may find a way short of war that may force Saddam to disarm. An overwhelming vote for this resolution could actually help the President avoid war while protecting our citizens, by making it clear to Saddam that we are united and complete disarmament is his only way out. During his speech in Cincinnati this past Monday, President Bush made clear that war is not his first option, but his last. But given Saddam's history, that last option may be the only way to avoid the greater danger of nuclear, biological or chemical weapons falling into the hands of those who will use them against America.
The situation we face is not all that unlike the situation Europe faced with the rise of another previously defeated enemy, Germany. Winston Churchill's pleas throughout the 1930's that Europe deal with Hitler early fell on deaf ears. Western Europe's negligence was followed by fear, appeasement, and eventually, the most destructive war in history.
This President is determined not to allow history to repeat itself. The American people now face a clear choice--whether to put our head in the sand--or draw a line in it. We will choose action over fear. The President is right--in this battle, time in not on our side. But freedom is. And in the end, victory will be as well. I strongly support this resolution, and I will encourage all Americans to do the same. My God bless our country, our President, and our men and women in uniform at this critical time.
Mr. Platts: Mr. Speaker, just off the rotunda of the U.S. Capitol building stands a statue of a fellow Pennsylvanian by the name of John Muhlenberg. In early 1776, this 29 year-old Lutheran Minister gave a sermon in Woodstock, Virginia in which he called upon the men of his congregation to join him in fighting for our Nation's independence. Quoting the Book of Ecclesiastes, Pastor Muhlenberg said: "There is an appointed time for everything. And there is a time for every event under heaven . . . A time for war and a time for peace." Contending that the time for war had arrived, Pastor Muhlenberg then concluded his sermon by casting off his clerical robes to reveal the uniform of a Continental Army officer. Pastor Muhlenberg went on to serve as a general in the Continental Army.
More than a century and a half later, in an address at Chautauqua, New York in 1936, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt stated, "I hate war." Yet, after Pearl Harbor roused our nation from a slumbering isolationism, President Roosevelt knew that the time for war had come. The actions of Pastor Muhlenberg and President Roosevelt remind us that, from the very beginning of our great Nation to modern times, war is always regrettable, but sometimes necessary to protect the lives of our citizens and to secure the important principles for which our Nation stands.
As our Nation now seeks to address the very serious and immediate threat that Saddam Hussein's regime poses to American lives, both abroad and here at home, it remains to be seen whether war will be a necessary part of our Nation's efforts. I certainly hope and pray that it will not. Unfortunately, however, Saddam Hussein's actions, past and present, do not provide much reason to believe that my hopes and prayers will be fulfilled.
If diplomacy is to have any chance of success, Saddam Hussein must fully and unequivocally understand that, if necessary, the United States and other peace-loving nations will no longer stand idly by while he further enhances his chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and aggressively pursues the production of nuclear weapons. Saddam Hussein must understand that, if necessary, we will use military force to eliminate the threat that his weapons pose to our citizens.
It is thus imperative for the United States Congress to pass legislation authorizing President George Bush to use military force to "defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq" and to "enforce all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq." I therefore join my Republican and Democrat colleagues in voting in favor of this legislation, House Joint Resolution 114. Importantly, H.R. Res. 114 requires that, prior to using military force against Saddam Hussein's regime, President Bush must officially determine that further reliance on "diplomatic or other peaceful means alone either will not adequately protect the national security of the United States" or will not likely "lead to enforcement of all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq." Such determination must be shared with the House and Senate.
My decision to support H.J. Res. 114 followed much deliberation and was the product of countless hours of careful review of information from many sources. I have fully considered the views and concerns of hundreds of 19th District residents. As a member of the House Subcommittee on National Security, Veterans Affairs, and International Relations, I have participated in numerous classified briefings with various Administration officials, including Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Richard Myers, and Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency John McLaughlin. I have also met overseas and in Washington with leaders of the Iraqi National Congress (INC), a coalition of Shi'a, Sunni, and Kurdish Iraqi dissidents seeking to liberate their people from Saddam Hussein's oppressive rule. Although very diverse in their backgrounds, they are united in a common belief that Saddam Hussein's military regime must be replaced with a more humane government. My interactions with the INC representatives leads me to believe that the removal of Saddam Hussein will be embraced enthusiastically by the overwhelming majority of the Iraqi people--just as the people of Afghanistan embraced their liberation from the Taliban.
My challenge is to fully explain my support for H.J. Res. 114 when much of the most important factual basis for this extremely serious decision is classified information. While I cannot legally share such classified material publicly, I can frankly and honestly state that my review of said material has wholly convinced me that Saddam Hussein's military regime poses a grave threat to the safety and security of American citizens, including here at home. There is compelling evidence of Iraq's biological and chemical capabilities and Saddam Hussein's intended use of such weapons. There is also strong evidence of his pursuit of nuclear weapons. Of significant concern is Iraq's growing fleet of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) that are capable of dispensing biological or chemical weapons. As President Bush stated in his recent address to the Nation, our intelligence information indicates that Saddam Hussein is "exploring ways of using these UAVs for missions targeting the United States."
Please allow me to address various actions by Iraq over the past 11 years that are in the public domain. First, Iraq has a long record of abetting terrorist groups. For example, Hussein has regularly praised Palestinian suicide bombers who have taken the lives of countless innocent civilians, including American citizens. He has also financially rewarded the families of said suicide bombers. Although no direct Iraqi involvement in the September 11 attacks has been proven, there is also strong evidence that Iraq is serving as a safe harbor for al Qaeda terrorists since the fall of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan.
Second, as part of the United Nations sponsored cease-fire agreement following the liberation of Kuwait, Iraq agreed to dismantle its weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programs and allow inspections to ensure its compliance with the agreement. Iraq has been in continuous violation of the cease-fire terms, playing "cat-and-mouse" games with United Nations inspectors while continuing to develop WMD. Since weapons inspectors were effectively expelled in 1998, Iraq has been completely free to continue its pursuit of developing WMD and the means to deliver them. Saddam Hussein has used chemical WMD in the past against a neighboring country, Iran, as well as against his own people, including innocent children.
Third, Saddam Hussein has demonstrated his continuing hostility towards the United States by attempting to assassinate former President George Bush in 1993 and firing regularly on U.S. aircraft attempting to enforce United Nations-sanctioned "no fly zones" in northern and southern Iraq, the only protection that the persecuted people in those regions possess. In fact, according to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, U.S. and other allied aircraft enforcing the "no fly zones" have been fired upon several thousand times by Iraqi military units.
Fourth, Saddam Hussein has engaged in heinous human rights violations against his own people. He has intimated political opponents by ordering the systematic rape of wives and mothers of said opponents and he has forced parents to watch their children be tortured as a means of political coercion.
"Finally, it is important to note that `'regime change" in Iraq is not a new policy adopted by the Bush Administration. Rather, the Iraq Liberation Act, which states that it is the policy of the United States government "to support efforts to remove the regime headed by Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq and to promote the emergence of a democratic government to replace that regime," was enacted in 1998. Sponsored by Congressman Ben Gilman in the House and Senators Trent Lott and Joseph Lieberman in the Senate, the Iraq Liberation Act passed the House by a vote of 360-38 and the Senate unanimously. President Bill Clinton signed this act into law on October 31, 1998.
If the use of military force against Saddam Hussein's regime does prove to be necessary to protect our Nation's security, such military action must be carefully designed to minimize the risk of injury and death to Iraqi civilians and American military personnel. The enemy is the regime of Saddam Hussein, not the Iraqi people.
Ideally, President Bush, working hand-in-hand with our allies and the United Nation's Security Council, will be successful in fully addressing the threat that Saddam Hussein and his military regime pose to world peace and to our Nation's security without having to resort to military force. But if diplomatic efforts fail to truly eliminate this grave threat to American lives, then we must be prepared to act decisively, just as our forefathers did during the Revolutionary War and World War II.
President Bush well captured the challenge before us when he stated, "As Americans, we want peace. We work and sacrifice for peace. But there can be no peace if our security depends on the will and whims of a ruthless and aggressive dictator."
Mr. Otter: Mr. Speaker, I rise today to express my support for House Joint Resolution 114, authorizing the use of United States Armed Forces against Iraq. After careful consideration of the information provided by the President it is clear that the threat posed by the current Iraqi regime can no longer be tolerated.
Thousands of my constituents have contacted me about this resolution, and many have expressed the earnest hope that war can be avoided. I share that hope, and urge our President to use every means short of war to persuade Iraq to end their violations of Security Council resolutions, to stop developing weapons of mass destruction, and to allow their people to live in peace and freedom. Unfortunately, the current regime has shown no willingness to do any of these things.
The Iraqi regime, controlled by Saddam Hussein and his family, is unique in its level of violence, both against its own people and its neighbors. Since Mr. Hussein came to power he has invaded both Iran and Kuwait. He has fired ballistic missiles against Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and Israel. He has sponsored terrorist attacks against American citizens and Iraqi dissidents abroad.
The Hussein regime is also unique in its unquenched thirst for weapons of mass destruction. Iraq has used chemical weapons against its own people and Iran. It has developed biological weapons. Most disturbingly, Iraq seeks to acquire nuclear weapons.
Some have said that the Iraqi weapons problem can be solved by inspections, but Iraq consistently hindered international inspections when they allowed them, and since 1998 has not permitted them at all. Meanwhile they go ahead with their research program funded by illegal oil smuggling.
An Iraq armed with nuclear armed ballistic missiles would not only be the dominant military power of the Middle East, but it would be the natural ally of all states and groups that oppose the United States. We cannot allow unbridled power into the hands of such an unscrupulous regime. America's future cannot be made dependent on a regime armed with the ultimate weapon.
The Iraqi regime led by Saddam Hussein is based on the ruthless use of force, and only responds to the use of force by those it threatens. If force must be used to resolve this crisis, we must ask ourselves: Should we use it now to defend peace and freedom, or later to avenge the murder of innocent men, women, and children by Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction. I believe that the answer to this question is clear and that our President is correct. I urge my colleagues to join me in voting for House Joint Resolution 114.
I am grateful for those allies such as the United Kingdom, the Czech Republic, and others who are standing with us, and remain hopeful that other nations will join our cause. I ask our President to seek the support of as many nations and international organizations as possible, and to make available whatever additional intelligence or security they need. I also must reiterate that our quarrel is with the Iraqi regime, not its people. As we move forward I urge my fellow Americans to remain tolerant of their neighbors and to avoid any action based on the ethnicity or religious persuasion of others. I also urge all Americans, and all sides in this debate, to support our troops who may be called upon to enforce this resolution and defend their country.
Mr. McDermott: Mr. Speaker, we are standing at the abyss of a horrifying war. President Bush himself told us Monday night that this war was neither "imminent nor unavoidable." And yet we are pushing, hurrying, racing against time to give the President our approval of a future war, a war without limits or boundaries, a war waged because the President thinks diplomacy has failed.
I do not believe diplomacy has failed. And I do not believe we have to go to war. President Bush's speech was designed to frighten the American people, and to intimidate the United Nations. It wasn't address to us, the Congress, because President Bush and his advisers already believe that they have our backing. But they don't have the backing of the American people. The pools tell us that. Our constituents tell us that. The phone calls and faxes and emails and letters to our offices, running 100 to one, 500 to one against this war, all tell us that. I, for one, am not afraid. And I do not think my colleagues in the House and in the Senate should be afraid either. We should not be afraid of standing up to an unnecessary war. We should not be afraid to stand up to a President when he is wrong. We should not be afraid of the American people; they are right.
President Bush tells us how important it is, for his campaign to win support in the United Nations, that we here in the United States speak with one voice. But we do not have only one voice; we cannot and will not lend our voices to support a war that we know is wrong. When my colleagues and I went to Iraq, we went to tell the Iraqis that they must allow free and unfettered U.N. inspections. We went to investigate the situation facing Iraqi civilians after 12 years of crippling economic sanctions. And we went knowing that our democracy is strengthened when we see, and hear, and learn and debate all sides. We didn't have to go to Iraq to know why we're against going to war against Iraq. There are plenty of reasons back home to oppose this juggernaut towards a unilateral preemptive strike on Iraq.
The first reason is that disarmament should be on top of our Iraq agenda. And getting the United Nations inspectors back in should be the first step towards accomplishing that task. The U.N. must be allowed to take the lead; their inspectors were already close to finishing work on the technical arrangements so they could get to work right away. Iraq had proposed the inspection team arrive as early as October 16th.
Initial meetings between Iraqi and U.N. officials were held in March of this year to begin discussions about the return of inspectors to Iraq after they had been excluded for almost four years. Further meetings were held in May and again on the 4th of July. That July meeting was particularly useful, coming in the context of growing international pressure on Iraq and seeming to set the stage for the serious possibility of inspectors returning to Baghdad. But the next day, July 5th, the Pentagon leaked its latest provocative war plan to the New York Times, calling for a major air attack and land invasion to "topple Saddam Hussein." The Iraqis pulled back.
But pressure continued to build, and in August the Iraqi Parliament invited members of Congress to come to Baghdad with inspectors of our choosing and to look for ourselves. On September 13th I went to New York to meet with Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri, and told him I would accept his invitation to Iraq with the understanding that the inspectors I would choose to accompany me would be the UNMOVIC inspectors themselves. We talked about the absolute necessity of the U.N. resuming unfettered inspections in Iraq, and he said they were ready for such inspections, and they understood that if no weapons were found the Security Council would lift the economic sanctions. I made no promises except to say I would come. Forty-eight hours later, on September 16, Sabri told Kofi Annan that Iraq was prepared to accept the inspectors back into Iraq.
Unfortunately, instead of welcoming this development, it became clear that the Bush administration was not prepared to take Iraq's "yes" for an answer. The State Department's answer to the long-delayed Iraqi acquiescence was to announce that it was now in "thwart mode," determined to prevent the inspections from going forward.
There has been no solid information regarding Iraq's weapons of mass destruction since UNSCOM and IAEA arms inspectors left Iraq in December 1998 in advance of the U.S. Desert Fox bombing operation. Prior to leaving, the last report (November 1998) of the UNSCOM chief Richard Butler stated explicitly that although they had been hindered by Iraqi non-compliance in carrying out a small number of inspections, "the majority of the inspections of facilities and sites under the ongoing monitoring system were carried out with Iraq's cooperation." the IAEA report was unequivocal that Iraq no longer had a viable nuclear program. The UNSCOM report was less definitive, but months earlier, in March 1998, UNSCOM Chief Richard Butler said that his team was satisfied there was no longer any nuclear or long-range missile capability in Iraq, and that UNSCOM was "very close" to completing the chemical and biological phases.
Since that time, there have been no verifiable report regarding Iraq's WMD programs. It is important to get inspectors back into Iraq, but U.S. threats for years made that virtually impossible by setting a "negative incentive" in place. This pattern has been underway for years. It began when then-Secretary of State Warren Christopher announced in April 1994 that the U.S. was no longer bound by the U.N. resolution's language promising an end to sanctions when disarmament of Iraq's WMD programs was complete. Similarly, in 1997 Christopher's successor, Madeleine Albright, affirmed that economic sanctions would remain as long as Saddam Hussein was in power--regardless of the U.N. position linking sanctions only to the WMD programs. So Baghdad was told that sanctions would remain regardless of Iraqi compliance with U.N. disarmament requirements. Similarly, the U.S. message today is that a U.S. military strike will likely take place regardless of Iraq's compliance with U.N. resolutions regarding inspections, so they have no reason to implement their own obligations. If the United States refuses to abide by the requirements of U.N. resolutions and the rule of international law, why are we surprised when an embattled and tyrannical government does the same thing?
Inspections remain vitally important. Throughout the 1980s the U.S. sent to Baghdad a lethal assortment of high-quality germ seed stock for anthrax, botulism, E. coli, and a host of other deadly diseases. It is certainly possible that scraps of Iraq's earlier biological and chemical weapons programs remain in existence, but their shelf life is likely only three or four years. More significantly, since it is also possible (though we have see no evidence) that Iraq has manufactured additional chemical or biological weapons material, Iraq has no delivery system capable of using them against the U.S. or U.S. allies. The notion that the U.S. must go to war against Iraq because of the existence of tiny amounts of biological material, insufficient for use in missiles or other strategic weapons and which the U.S. itself provided during the years of the U.S.-Iraq alliance in the 1980s, is simply unacceptable.
Regarding the nuclear level threat, the IAEA confirmed in 1998 that Iraq had no viable nuclear weapons program. Despite constant allegations, we still have seen no clear evidence that Iraq is anywhere close to being able to manufacture a nuclear weapon. The breathless claim that "if it obtained sufficient missile material and massive external assistance" Iraq could manufacture a nuclear weapon in one year is simply spurious. The same statement could be said for Cameroon or Vanuatu--that's why we have military sanctions and that's why we ought to hold the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and other disarmament treaties in much higher regard.
Pretty much the whole world believes that inspections and disarmament should be our goal--not the overthrow of the government in Iraq. The Bush administration knows it is isolated in the world on this issue: to say that the U.S. goal is regime overthrow, rather than disarmament would violate the UN Charter.
The second reason we should oppose this war has to do with its impact on our relations with allies all over the world. There is virtually no international support, at the governmental or public level, for a U.S. attack on Iraq. Our closest allies throughout Europe, in Canada, and elsewhere, have made clear their opposition to a military invasion. While they recognize the Iraqi regime as a brutal, undemocratic regime, they do not support a unilateral preemptive military assault as an appropriate response to that regime. Our European friends are pleading with us not to go to war, reminding us that disarmament, starting with inspections, is their goal. Russia and China say the same thing. Are we to simply ignore our friends' opinions and go it alone?
Throughout the Middle East, the Arab states, including our closest allies, have made unequivocal their opposition to an invasion of Iraq. Even Kuwait, once the target of Iraqi military occupation and ostensibly the most vulnerable to Iraqi threats, has moved to normalize its relations with Baghdad. The Arab League-sponsored rapprochement between Iraq and Kuwait at the March 2002 Arab Summit is now underway, including such long-overdue moves as the return of Kuwait's national archives. Iraq has now repaired its relation with every Arab country, and not a single one of Iraq's neighbors publicly supports a U.S. war. Turkey has refused to publicly announce its agreement to allow use of its air bases, and Jordan and other Arab countries have made clear their urgent plea for the U.S. to abjure a military attack on Iraq.
Again, it is certain unlikely that a single government in the region would ultimately stand against a U.S. demand for base rights, use of airspace or overflight rights, or access to any other facilities. The question we must answer therefore is not whether our allies will ultimately accede to our wishes, but just how high a price are we prepared to exact from our allies? Virtually every Arab government, especially those most closely tied to the U.S. (Jordan and Egypt, perhaps even Saudi Arabia) will face dramatically escalated popular opposition. The existing crisis of legitimacy faced by these non- representative regimes, absolute monarchies and president-for-life style democratics, will be seriously exacerbated by a U.S. invasion of Iraq. Region-wide instability may be expected to result, and some of those governments might even face the possibility of being overthrown.
In the entire Middle East region, only Israel supports the U.S. build-up to war in Iraq. Prime Minister Sharon has made no secret of his view that the chaos caused by a U.S. attack on Iraq might well provide him with the opportunity for a large-scale escalation against the Palestinians.
When President Bush repeats his mantra that "you are either with us or with the terrorists," no government in the world wants to stand defiant. But a foreign policy based on international coercion and our allies' fear of retaliation for noncompliance, is not a policy that will protect Americans and our place in the world.
Still another reason to oppose this has to do with the human toll. During the Vietnam war, I was lieutenant commander in the U.S. Navy Medical Corps. My job, as a psychiatrist, was to treat young soldiers who returned from that war terribly damaged by what they saw and what they suffered. I carry those memories with me still.
While official estimates of casualties among U.S. service personnel are not public, we can be certain they will be much higher than in the current war in Afghanistan. We do know, from Pentagon estimates of two years ago, the likely death toll among Iraqi civilians: about 10,000 Iraqi civilians would be killed.
The most recent leaked military plan for invading Iraq, the so-called "inside-out" plan based on a relatively small contingent of U.S. ground troops with heavy reliance on air strikes, would focus first and primarily on Baghdad. In fact, all of the leaked military plans begin with air assaults on Baghdad. The Iraqi capital is described as being ringed with Saddam Hussein's crack troops and studded with anti- aircraft batteries. Those charges may or may not be true. But what is never mentioned in the military planning documents is the inconvenient fact that Baghdad is also a crowded city of five million or more people; a heavy air bombardment would cause the equivalent human catastrophe of--and look very similar to--a heavy air bombardment of Los Angeles.
And it is here that my trip to Iraq taught me a great deal. It reminded me again of the costs of war. I remembered again what Iraqis would suffer with this war. My colleagues and I visited hospitals, where we saw young cancer patients dying before their mothers eyes from lack of chemotherapy drugs.
Further, the destruction of civilian infrastructure such as water, electrical and communications equipment, would lead to tens, perhaps hundreds of thousands of more civilian deaths, particularly among children, the aged and others of the most vulnerable sectors. We can anticipate that such targeted attacks would be justified by claims of "dual use." But if we look back to the last U.S. war with Iraq, we know that the Pentagon planned and carried out studies ahead of time, documenting the likely impact on civilians of specific attacks. In one case, Pentagon planners anticipated that striking Iraq's civilian infrastructure would cause "Increased incidence of diseases [that] will be attributable to degradation of normal preventive medicine, waste disposal, water purification/distribution, electricity, and decreased ability to control disease outbreaks. . . ." The Defense Intelligence Agency's document (posted on the Pentagon's Gulflink website), is titled "Disease Information--Subject: Effects of Bombing on Disease Occurrence in Baghdad" and is dated 22 January 1991, just six days after the war began. It itemized the likely outbreaks of diseases to include: "acute diarrhea" brought on by bacteria such as E. coli, shigella, and salmonella, or by protozao such as giardia, which will affect "particularly children," or by rotavirus, which will also affect "particularly children." And despite this advance knowledge, the bombing of the water treatment systems proceeded, and indeed, according to UNICEF figures, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, "particularly children," died from the effects of dirty water. Just as predicted.
I traveled with my colleagues to the southern city of Basra, where we heard from physicians that the first question new mothers ask after giving birth is not whether the baby is a boy or a girl, but whether it is normal or not--because the rates of birth defects are so high. Many think those high rates of birth defects, skyrocketing rates of leukemia and other cancers, have something to do with the depleted uranium weapons our military used so efficiently during the war 12 years ago.
Many of our own Gulf War veterans--and their children--are also suffering higher than normal rates of cancers and birth defects. And the Veterans Administration medical care budget has just been slashed. Do we want to go to war again, a war that will cost perhaps $60 to $100 billion, and create a whole new generation of wounded veterans, along with too many who will not come home at all? We have not yet heard an answer from the Pentagon to the question of how they plan to protect our men and women in uniform--as well as vulnerable Iraqi civilians-- from the danger of depleted uranium weapons. So far the Pentagon has still not conducted the full-scale scientific study of the impact of DU on the human body. We should not go to war to use our troops as guinea pigs again.
I oppose this war because it is a war of empire, not of legitimate self-defense. We claim to be a nation of laws. But too often we are prepared to put aside the requirements of international law and the United Nations Charter to which we hold other nations appropriately accountable.
When it comes to policy on Iraq, the U.S. has a history of sidelining the central role that should be played by the United Nations. This increasingly unilateralist trajectory is one of the main reasons for the growing international antagonism towards the U.S. By imposing its will on the Security Council--insisting on the continuation of economic sanctions when virtually every other country wants to lift them, announcing its intention to ignore the UN in deciding whether to go to war against Iraq--the U.S. isolates us from our allies, antagonizes our friends, and sets our nation apart from the international systems of laws that govern the rest of the world. This does not help, but rather undermines, our long-term security interests.
International law does not allow for preemptive military strikes, except in the case of extreme emergency to prevent an immediate attack. President Bush himself told us on October 7th that war with Iraq is "neither imminent nor unavoidable." Therefore it does not qualify as self-defense under the UN Charter. We simply do not have the right--no country does--to launch a war against another country that has not attacked us. If the Pentagon had been able to scramble a jet to take down the second plane flying into the World Trade Center last September, that would be a legal us of preemptive self defense. An attack on Iraq--which does not have the capacity, and has not for a decade or more shown any specific intention or plan or effort to attack the U.S.--violates international law and the UN Charter.
The Charter, in Article 51, outlines the terms under which a Member State of the United Nations may use force in self-defense. That Article acknowledges a nation's "inherent right of individual or collective self-defense If an armed attack occurs against a member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security." [Emphasis added.] The Charter does not allow military force to be used absent an armed attack having occurred.
Some administration spokespeople are fond of a sound bit that says "the UN Charter is not a suicide pact." Others like to remind us that Iraq (and other nations) routinely violate the Charter. Both statements are true. But the United States has not been attacked by Iraq, and no evidence has been brought forward that Iraq is anywhere close to being able to carry out such an attack. The U.S. is the strongest international power--in terms of global military reach, economic, cultural, diplomatic and political power--that has ever existed throughout history. If the United States--with such massive global power--does not recognize the UN Charter and international law as the foundation of global security and hold ourselves accountable to them, how can we expect others to do so?
President Bush's October 7th speech was clearly designed to frighten the American people. Once again that speech disingenuously linked the true horror and legitimate fear of the September 11th attacks with an implied connection to Iraq. The events of September 11 must never happen again, the president proclaims, and we will go to war against Iraq to make sure that they don't.
Few of us in the Congress, and too few journalists and pundits, stood to challenge that claim, to remind the American people that no link has been shown between Iraq and the events of September 11th. That there is a war against terrorism that has so far failed to find the perpetrators of those events. That of all the four thousand or more people killed in Afghanistan, not one of them was named Osama bin Laden.
It is now clear that (despite intensive investigative efforts) there is simply no evidence as yet of any Iraqi involvement in the terror attacks of September 11. The most popular theory, of a Prague-based collaboration between one of the 9/11 terrorists and an Iraqi official, has collapsed. On July 17th, the Prague Post quoted the director general of the Czech foreign intelligence service UZSI (Office of Foreign Relations and Information), Frantisek Bublan, denying the much- touted meeting between Mohamed Atta, one of the 9/11 hijackers, and an Iraqi agent. The Czech Republic simply had no evidence that such a meeting ever took place, he said.
More significantly, the Iraqi regime's brutal treatment of its own population has generally not extended to international terrorist attacks. The State Department's own compilation of terrorist activity in its 2001 Patterns of Global Terrorism, released May 2002, does not document a single serious act of international terrorism by Iraq. Almost all references are to political statements.
We are told that we must go to war preemptively against Iraq because Baghdad might, some time in the future, succeed in crafting a dangerous weapon and might, some time in the future, give that weapon to a terrorist group--maybe Osama bin Laden--who might, some time in the future, use that weapon against the U.S. The problem with this analysis, aside from the fact that preemptive strikes are illegal under international law, is that it ignores the widely known historic antagonism between Iraq and bin Laden. According to the New York Times, "shortly after Iraqi forces invaded Kuwait in 1990, Osama bin Laden approached Prince Saltan bin Abdelaziz al-Saud, the Saudi defense minister, with an unusual proposition. . . . Arriving with maps and many diagrams, Mr. bin Laden told Prince Sultan that the kingdom could avoid the indignity of allowing an army of American unbelievers to enter the kingdom to repel Iraq from Kuwait. He could lead the fight himself, he said, at the head of a group of former mujahideen that he said could number 100,000 men."\2\ Even if bin Laden's claim to be able to provide those troops was clearly false, bin Laden's hostility towards the ruthlessly secular Iraq remained evident. There is no evidence that that has changed.
Ironically, an attack on Iraq would increase the threat to U.S. citizens throughout the Middle East and beyond, as another generation of young Iraqis come to identify Americans only as the pilots of high- flying jet bombers and as troops occupying their country. While today American citizens face no problems from ordinary people in the streets of Baghdad or elsewhere in Iraq, as I found during my visit to Iraq in September 2002, that situation would likely change in the wake of a U.S. attack on Iraq. In other countries throughout the Middle East, already palpable anger directed at U.S. threats would dramatically escalate and would provide a new recruiting tool for extremist elements bent on harm to U.S. interests or U.S. citizens. It would become far more risky for U.S. citizens to travel abroad.
Many accusations have been made regarding the role of oil in this war. What is clear is that the public statements of some in the private sector match the undenied whispers of others, such as administration figures themselves. those statements include the intention to render null and void all existing oil exploration contracts signed between Iraq and various national oil companies, particularly those of France and Russia, when the current Iraqi regime is replaced after a U.S. war. I do not want to support a war partly designed to redraft the global oil markets in the interest of undermining French or Russian oil companies and privileging our own.
Any of us who are serious about opposing this war must also be serious about alternatives to war. We must take seriously the threat of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Disarmament must be on top of our agenda. We must support the weapons inspection team, not undermining it. We must support the United Nations, not threatening it with irrelevance if its member states don't agree with our war.
And we should go beyond the existing efforts to get serious about military sanctions. Denying Iraq access to weapons is not sufficient, nor can it be maintained as long as Iraq is surrounded by some of the most over-armed states in the world. U.S. weapons shipments to all countries in the region aggravate this situation and, as the biggest arms exporter in the world, the U.S. can change it.
We can expand the application of military sanctions as defined in UN Resolution 687. Military sanctions against Iraq should be tightened--by expanding them to a system of regional military sanctions, thus lowering the volatility of this already arms-glutted region. Article 14 of resolution 687--the same resolution that calls for sanctions, inspections and destruction of Iraq's WMD programs--points the way. It recognizes that the disarmament of Iraq should be seen as a step towards "the goal of establishing in the Middle East a zone free from weapons of mass destruction and all missiles for their delivery and the objective of a global ban on chemical weapons.
We are told we must attack Iraq preemptively so that it can never obtain nuclear weapons. While we know from IAEA inspectors that Iraq's nuclear program was destroyed by the end of 1998, we do not know what has developed since. We do know, however, a few things. We know that nuclear facilities are of necessity large, visible to surveillance satellites, and detectable by a host of telltale chemical and radiological footprints. Such facilities cannot be mounted on the back of a pick-up truck. Our intelligence indicates that Iraq does not have access to fissile material, without which any nuclear program is a hollow shell. And we know where fissile material is. Protection of all nuclear material, including insuring continuity of the funding for protection of Russian nuclear material, must be an on-going priority.
We should note that U.S. officials are threatening a war against Iraq, a country known not to possess nuclear weapons. Simultaneously, the administration is continuing appropriate negotiations with North Korea, which does have something much closer to nuclear weapons capacity. Backed by IAEA inspections, the model of negotiations and inspections is exactly what the U.S. should be proposing for Iraq.
And what about "the day after"? There is no democratic opposition ready to take over in Iraq. Far more likely than the creation of an indigenous, popularly-supported democratic Iraqi government, would be the replacement of the current regime with one virtually indistinguishable from it except for the man at the top. In February 2002 Newsweek magazine profiled the five leaders said to be on Washington's short list of candidates to replace Saddam Hussein. The Administration has not publicly issued such a list of its own, but it certainly typifies the model the U.S. has in mind. All five of the candidates were high-ranking officials within the Iraqi military until the mid-1990s. All five have been linked to the use of chemical weapons by the military; at least one admits it. The legitimacy of going to war against a country to replace a brutal military leader with another brutal leader must be challenged.
And whoever is installed in Baghdad by victorious U.S. troops, it is certain that a long and possibly bloody occupation would follow. The price would be high; Iraqis know better than we do how their government has systematically denied them civil and political rights. But they hold us responsible for stripping them of their economic and social rights--the right to sufficient food, clear water, education, medical care--that together form the other side of the human rights equation. Economic sanctions have devastated Iraqi society. After twelve years those in Washington who believe that Iraqis accept the popular inside- the-Beltway mantra that "sanctions aren't responsible, Saddam Hussein is responsible" for hunger and deprivation in Iraq, are engaged in wishful thinking. The notion that everyone in Iraq will welcome as "liberators" those whom most Iraqis hold responsible for 12 years of crippling sanctions is simply naive. Basing military strategy on such wishful speculation becomes very dangerous--in particular for U.S. troops themselves.
An U.S. invasion of Iraq would risk the lives of U.S. military personnel and kill potentially thousands of Iraqi civilians, it is not surprising that many U.S. military officers, including some within the Joint Chief's of Staff, are publicly opposed to a new war against Iraq. such an attack would violate international law and the UN Charter, and isolate us from our friends and allies around the world. An invasion would complicate the return of UN arms inspectors, and will cost billions of dollars urgently needed at home. And at the end of the day, an invasion will not insure stability, let alone democracy, in Iraq or the rest of the volatile Middle east region. Rather, it will put American civilians at greater risk than they are today.
We need disarmament, not a war for empire, oil, or "regime change." We need the UN inspectors to go in and finish their work. Until they do, we simply don't know what weapons Iraq has or doesn't have.
Let us not go to war, in pursuit of oil or the blandishments of empire. War is too important and its consequences too disastrous.
