[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 118 (Wednesday, September 18, 2002)]
[House]
[Page H6351]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




      UNANSWERED QUESTIONS REGARDING ADMINISTRATION PLANS FOR IRAQ

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Putnam). Under a previous order of the 
House, the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio) is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, today, before the Committee on Armed 
Services, Secretary Rumsfeld, who has made up his mind, said that the 
President has not yet made up his mind about a preemptive war and an 
invasion and occupation of Iraq.
  Now, when the Secretary was asked how he reconciled that with the 
rush to adopt a resolution authorizing the use of force here in the 
House if the President had not yet made up his mind and could not 
articulate the case, he really did not answer the question. To tell the 
truth, I was a bit put off by that, but that is a key question which 
needs to be answered.
  On September 5, I sent the President a letter signed by 17 other 
Members of the United States House of Representatives. We were pleased 
that the President had recognized the authority of the Congress, the 
sole authority of the Congress for declarations of war and use and 
initiation of force, except in the immediate defense of the United 
States, as per the Constitution and the War Powers Act; but that we 
felt that the President had a number of very important questions to 
answer before Congress should even begin the debate on such a 
resolution.
  I fear they are really putting the cart before the horse here. They 
want a resolution without making the case. The President gave an 
eloquent speech at the U.N. last week, but many of the things he talked 
about, the offenses of Saddam Hussein were in fact things that had 
happened during the Reagan administration, during the administration of 
Bush I, in fact, such as the horrible gassing of people within his own 
country and the U.S. aiding him in his war against Iran before we 
dropped our friendship and support of his horrible regime. Many of 
these things took place then.
  Then he went on to make the case for the U.N. resolutions which have 
been violated. We agree there, that this is an odious individual. He is 
not worthy of leading any nation. He has gassed and killed his own 
people, promoted religious and ethnic strife, murdered all his 
potential political opponents. I wish he could be deported to another 
planet, but right now, he is in power in his country. Hopefully, some 
people in his country will find a way to overthrow him and get rid of 
him.
  But the question for us in the United States Congress is, should we 
authorize the first ever preemptive war in the history of the United 
States, and what is the immediate and serious nature of the threat that 
would have us break from all precedents in our history and all the 
precedents of international law? Those are the questions that are 
embodied in this letter.
  Quite truthfully, thus far in both unclassified and classified 
briefings, and I cannot talk about what they did talk about in 
classified briefings, but I can tell Members what they do not talk 
about in classified briefings. They have not talked about anything in 
the classified briefings that we have not read in USA Today or heard on 
CNN, so they have yet to make an effective case that somehow he has 
been transmogrified from this reprehensible dictator in a mostly 
impoverished developing or Third World country to this incredible and 
immediate threat to the integrity of the United States of America.
  They can find no links to al Qaeda, who is an immediate threat to the 
United States of America. In fact, I would say that we are being 
distracted, as are many of our allies and friends, and not-so-good 
allies and friends around the world, from the pursuit of al Qaeda and 
wiping out that threat by propping up suddenly this new threat.
  I think a lot of this, unfortunately, is probably left over from his 
father's administration. Many of the foremost advocates of this 
preemptive war served in Bush's father's administration, and are 
aggrieved that they did not then so-called ``finish the job.''
  But the same problems that confronted Colin Powell then confront us 
now. Probably his military is not that significant; maybe, maybe not. 
Maybe there will not be a lot of casualties. Maybe this can be done 
without a lot of civilian casualties. Sure, we can work through all of 
that. But then what? Then what?
  I heard one Senator say that we are going to rule Iraq. We are going 
to rule Iraq, a country of more than 60 million people with an 
unbelievably fractious history, in the middle of the most volatile 
region on Earth, with the problems with the Shi'as and the Sunnis and 
the Kurds and the Turks and all those other things, and we are going to 
rule Iraq?
  They have to have not only an entrance strategy and a rationale for 
this war, they need an exit strategy that they have to explain to the 
American people and this Congress before they should receive any sort 
of authorization to do anything in that area.

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