[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 110 (Wednesday, September 4, 2002)]
[House]
[Page H6030]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          AVOID WAR WITH IRAQ

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Paul) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. PAUL. Madam Speaker, I want to start my 5 minutes with a quote 
from Jefferson. Jefferson said, ``No country perhaps was ever so 
thoroughly against war as ours.'' These dispositions pervade every 
description of its citizens, whether in or out of office.

                              {time}  1915

  We love and we value peace and we know its blessings from experience.
  We need this sentiment renewed in this Congress in order to avoid a 
needless war that offers us nothing but trouble. Congress must deal 
with this serious matter of whether or not we go to war. I believe it 
would be a mistake with the information that is available to us today. 
I do not see any reason whatsoever to take young men and young women 
and send them 6,000 miles off to a land to attack a country that has 
not committed any aggression against this country. I believe it would 
be a serious mistake for various reasons.
  First, it is a practical reason. There is no practical defense for 
this. Our military now has been weakened over the last decade, and 
actually when we go into Iraq, as we may well do, we will weaken our 
ability to defend our country. We do not enhance our defense by 
initiating this war.
  Besides, it is impractical because of unintended consequences which 
none of us know about and what might come. We do not know exactly how 
long this will last. It could be a six-day war, a six-month war or six 
years or even longer. It could be very impractical by going to war.
  There is a military reason for not going to war. We ought to just 
listen to the generals and the other military experts that are now 
advising us there is not a good reason to go to war, possibly even 
start World War III some have suggested. They claim our troops have 
been spread too thinly around the world, and it is not a good military 
matter to go into war today.
  There is a constitutional argument and a constitutional mistake that 
could be made. If we once again go to war, as we have done on so many 
occasions since World War II, without a clear declaration of war and a 
clear goal of victory, a haphazard way of slipping into war by 
Executive Order or, heaven forbid, getting permission from the United 
Nations makes it so that it is almost inevitable that true victory will 
not come.
  So we should look at this in a very constitutional fashion. We in the 
Congress should assume our responsibility because war is declared by 
Congress, not by a President and not by a U.N.
  This is a very important matter, and I am delighted to hear that 
there will be hearings and discussion on this matter. I am certainly 
arguing the case that we should have a balanced approach. We have 
already had some hearings in the other body, and we heard only one side 
of why we must do this, but if we have true hearings, we best have a 
debate and evidence on both sides of this matter rather than just 
getting one side up and saying why we must do this.
  Actually there are even good political reasons for not going into 
this battle. War is not popular. It may be popular for the short run 
when there seems to be an immediate victory and everyone is gloating 
over the victory, but war is not popular. People get killed and body 
bags end up coming back. War is very unpopular, and it is not the 
politically smart thing to do.
  There are economic reasons that we must be careful for. We can make 
serious economic mistakes. It is estimated that this venture into Iraq 
may well cost over a hundred billion dollars. Our national debt right 
now is increasing at a rate of over $450 billion and we are talking 
about spending another hundred billion dollars on an adventure that we 
do not know what the outcome will be and how long this will last? What 
will happen to oil prices? What will happen to the recession that we 
are in? What is going to happen to the deficit? All kinds of economic 
ramification. So we better not make the mistake of going into something 
that really we have no business getting into.
  There is a diplomatic reason for not going. There could be serious 
diplomatic mistakes made. All the Arab nations nearby and adjacent to 
Iraq object to it and do not endorse what we plan and insist that we 
might be doing, and none of the European allies are anxious for this to 
happen. So diplomatically we are way off on doing this.
  I hope we take a second thought and be very cautious in what we do.

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