[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 123 (Wednesday, September 25, 2002)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1644-E1645]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      A GRAVE AND GATHERING DANGER

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. STEPHEN HORN

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                      Tuesday, September 24, 2002

  Mr. HORN. Mr. Speaker, the House will soon take up the question of 
whether to authorize the President to use any necessary means, 
including military force, to require Iraq to abide by its agreements 
with the United Nations to destroy its stockpiles of chemical and 
biological weapons. There is of course no question that Saddam Hussein 
has repeatedly violated these agreements and that he continues to 
pursue the development of weapons of mass destruction. The only real 
question is whether Congress and the United Nations will enforce these 
international resolutions.
  Mr. Speaker, I strongly support the President and I believe that it 
is important that we act promptly on this issue. The President made 
clear in his address to the General Assembly of the United Nations that 
there is a clear and compelling case for forcing Saddam Hussein to obey 
UN agreements or face real and immediate consequences. As we prepare to 
debate this issue, I urge my colleagues to review the President's 
remarks because I believe this speech not only could help avert a new 
Persian Gulf war but also could help restore credibility to a United 
Nations that has been drifting toward irrelevance.
  I have been a strong and consistent supporter of the United Nations. 
I believe it is essential that we have a strong, credible and effective 
international forum where disputes can be debated and resolved without 
bloodshed, where problems that stretch beyond the boundaries and 
resources of any one nation can be tackled by the joint efforts of many 
countries and where those who flout the laws of civilized behavior not 
only face condemnation but international penalties with real bite.
  In his speech, President Bush presented two challenges. One was to 
Saddam Hussein to abide by a series of UN resolutions over the past 12 
years requiring him to halt production of weapons of mass destruction, 
to end internal political repression in Iraq and to abide by the terms 
of the ceasefire that ended the Gulf War. The other challenge was to 
the United Nations to enforce its own resolutions, if Saddam continues 
to murder and maim within Iraq while furiously working to complete his 
arsenal of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons.
  By ordering Saddam to disarm and then failing to take any effective 
action to enforce those orders, the United Nations has endangered its 
own credibility. Since the 1991 ceasefire, the UN Security Council has 
issued 12 specific demands for Iraq to comply with requirements to 
eliminate weapons of mass destruction and other steps. Iraq has 
repeatedly and brazenly refused. As a result, UN weapons inspection 
teams left Iraq four years ago, ending any check on Saddam's growing 
arsenal.
  President Bush made clear that this steady drift into danger will not 
be allowed to continue. Saddam has a well-documented history of 
invading neighboring nations like Iran and Kuwait, and using highly 
lethal concoctions of poison gas and nerve agents despite all 
prohibitions in international law and in civilized behavior. He also 
has a fully documented history of gassing entire villages of opposition 
groups within Iraq, as in 1988 when attacks against Kurdish villages 
killed hundreds of women and children.
  The President puts it very simply: ``The history, the logic and the 
facts lead to one conclusion: Saddam Hussein's regime is a grave and 
gathering danger. To suggest otherwise is to hope against the evidence. 
To assume this regime's good faith is to bet the lives of millions and 
the peace of the world in a reckless gamble, and this is a risk we must 
not take.''
  President Bush then posed two unavoidable questions that only the 
United Nations can now answer: ``Are Security Council resolutions to be 
honored and enforced or cast aside without consequences? Will the 
United Nations serve the purpose of its founding or will it be 
irrelevant?''
  The only adequate response to those questions is forceful and 
unequivocal action by the United Nations to require that Iraq 
immediately comply with the terms of the 1991 ceasefire and subsequent 
UN requirements, beginning with the complete elimination of weapons of 
mass destruction. These demands are not onerous or outrageous. They 
simply require that Iraq abide by the same standards of human decency 
that guide every civilized nation. To demand less would be to abandon 
millions of innocent people within Iraq and to endanger millions more 
throughout the rest of the world.

[[Page E1645]]

It would also set the precedent that the malignant whims of a 
determined dictator can reduce the United Nations to a hollow debating 
society that cannot uphold the promise of world peace.
  A war against Iraq by a renewed international coalition or by the 
United States alone would be a grave and sobering step with many risks 
and unknowns. We cannot and should not take such a step without full 
consideration by the United Nations and the Congress, as the President 
has promised. But the dangers of continued inaction, of endless 
dithering, are too frightening to ignore. We must act to support the 
President.

                          ____________________