[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 145 (Tuesday, November 12, 2002)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1984-E1985]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            U.N. RESOLUTION

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. MARCY KAPTUR

                                of ohio

                    in the house of representatives

                       Tuesday, November 12, 2002

  Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I would like to insert the following 
articles into the Record.

           [lsqb]From the New York Times, Oct. 17, 2002[rsqb]

U.S. Is Putting Heavy Pressure on France and Other Skeptics for a U.N. 
                               Resolution

                         (By Steven R. Weisman)

       The Bush administration is mounting a campaign of public 
     pressure and private diplomatic and economic concessions to 
     persuade France and other skeptical members of the United 
     Nations Security Council to go along with a single resolution 
     threatening military force against Iraq.
       With rising concern in Washington that time is short for 
     passage of such a resolution--many experts say military 
     action would be easier in the winter--talks on the 
     resolution's wording are accelerating at the United Nations 
     and in meetings and telephone calls in and between capitals. 
     ``There's no sense that the French don't want to do this,`` 
     an administration official said, referring to a tough United 
     Nations resolution on Iraq. ``But there is a growing 
     frustration that we don't yet have an agreement.''
       President Jacques Chirac of France, in another sign of 
     disagreement with the United States, appeared in remarks 
     published today to take issue with President Bush's arguments 
     that Iraq is cultivating links with Al Qaeda and wants, as he 
     said on Monday, to use it as ``a forward army.''
       ``As far as I know, no proof has been found, or at least 
     been made official, for a link between Iraq and Al Qaeda,'' 
     Mr. Chirac said in the interview in the Beirut-based, French-
     language newspaper L'Orient-Le Jour. ``Even if certain 
     terrorists could have been able to find refuge in Iraq, we 
     must not mix up the issues. The first objective of action by 
     the international community is Iraq, and that means 
     disarmament.''
       Last month, Mr. Bush won praise, especially among war 
     opponents in Europe, for promising to go to the United 
     Nations for approval before taking military action against 
     Saddam Hussein's government in Baghdad.
       But after intense discussions and a certain impatience in 
     Washington, now France, Russia and China--which have vetoes 
     on the Security Council--remain opposed to giving the 
     administration an automatic option to use force if Iraq fails 
     to comply with new weapons inspections.
       France wants the United States to go to a second stage and 
     get later authorization for using force if Mr. Hussein 
     rebuffs the United Nations inspectors.
       France, which has a history of going its own way in NATO 
     and maintains strong links to the Arab world, has emerged as 
     a bigger stumbling block than Russia or China, which do not 
     consider themselves American allies, administration officials 
     said.
       American officials express confidence that if they can 
     persuade Mr. Chirac to go along with a single United Nations 
     resolution, Moscow and Beijing will follow suit by either 
     agreeing to it or not vetoing it.
       At least so far, officials say, France is resisting an 
     administration proposal to have the resolution threaten 
     unspecified ``consequences,'' rather than a more explicit 
     reference to force, if the inspection process collapses.
       Diplomats familiar with the negotiations said the Bush 
     Administration could interpret the word ``consequences'' as 
     tantamount to pre-approval for military action. At the same 
     time, they said Washington was offering private assurances 
     that the United States would not ignore the Security Council.
       ``This could end up with something that is not a one-stage 
     or a two-stage process,'' said a diplomat familiar with the 
     talks. ``The word is that it will be one-and-a-half stages.''
       ``The French really do want to be with us,'' a senior State 
     Department official said. ``The French are worried that if 
     the first resolution authorizes all necessary means to 
     enforce inspections, we might go to war without checking with 
     them. What they want is to keep the Security Council in the 
     picture. We believe that can be done in the context of one 
     resolution. That's our goal.''
       In a sense, the negotiations at the United Nations are 
     running along the same lines as Mr. Bush's talks with 
     Congress over the last month.
       The administration won support of skeptical lawmakers in 
     part because of personal assurances from Mr. Bush that 
     Congress would be consulted in the event of a war. Similarly, 
     the United States is making promises of consultation with 
     United Nations allies if a conflict occurs.
       In the background are firm and even threatening words from 
     Mr. Bush, who declared today that the United Nations must 
     ``face up'' to the danger from the Hussein government. 
     ``Those who choose to live in denial may eventually be forced 
     to live in fear,'' he said at a ceremony at which he signed 
     the resolution passed by Congress last week authorizing the 
     use of force against Baghdad. A White House official said he 
     was not referring to any particular nation.
       Mr. Chirac, who was in Alexandria, Egypt, today for the 
     beginning of a Middle East trip, reiterated his support for a 
     two-stage resolution process. He said the Security Council 
     should authorize force only as a last resort if the Iraqis 
     were not acting in good faith.
       A separate drama is playing itself out behind the scenes, 
     some administration officials said. That is the role of 
     Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, who is the 
     administration's main advocate of diplomacy as a means to 
     address Iraq, rather than simply threats of force.
       Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald 
     H. Rumsfeld are said to be most skeptical that diplomacy can 
     work. Their fear, according to officials, is that Mr. Hussein 
     can drag out the diplomatic and inspection process.
       Mr. Rumsfeld and Mr. Cheney are also the ones demanding a 
     single resolution at the United Nations that explicitly 
     threatens force if the inspection route fails, officials 
     said.
       They are also said to want a swift timetable for 
     inspections and additional measures, like armed escorts for 
     inspectors and removing Iraqi scientists and their families 
     from the country for interviews.
       Diplomats in and out of the government say France wants to 
     see the United Nations play a continuing role so that the 
     French can remain part of the process.
       ``The French want to look like they constrained or shaped 
     what the United States ends up doing,'' said Dennis Ross, the 
     former Middle East negotiator in the Clinton and first Bush 
     administrations. ``They want to be relevant and to make sure 
     that the Security Council remains relevant. But they don't 
     want to be left out if the United States goes to war.''
       Many experts say France's potential economic interests in a 
     future Iraq are a factor in its wanting eventually to be on 
     the side of Washington if Mr. Hussein is overthrown. Russia 
     also has strong oil interests in Iraq.
       ``Obviously French oil companies would want to be major 
     players in Iraqi oil fields and in the export and refining of 
     Iraqi oil in a post-Saddam Iraq,'' said Paul Sullivan, a 
     professor of economics at the National Defense University in 
     Washington. ``The French signed oil deals in Iraq, but these 
     deals cannot be implemented until after the sanctions against 
     Iraq are taken off.''
       The Bush administration has gone out of its way to assure 
     Moscow that in the event of a ``regime change'' in Baghdad, 
     Russian interests will be looked after.
       Recently Secretary Powell told the U.S.-Russia Business 
     Council that the United States fully understood Russia's 
     desire to play a role in Iraq's oil industry. ``We are taking 
     fully into account the interest of the nations in the region 
     and the economic impact such a transition might have on 
     them,'' he said.

                                  ____
                                  

           [lsqb]From the New York Times, Oct. 17, 2002[rsqb]

                          Iraq States Its Case

                         (By Mohammed Aldouri)

       Mohammed Aldouri is the Iraqi ambassador to the United 
     Nations.
       After so many years of fear from war, the threat of war and 
     suffering, the people of Iraq and their government in Baghdad 
     are eager for peace. We have no intention of attacking 
     anyone, now or in the future, with weapons of any kind. If we 
     are attacked, we will surely defend ourselves with all means 
     possible. But bear in mind that we have no nuclear or 
     biological or chemical weapons, and we have no intention of 
     acquiring them.
       We are not asking the people of the United States or of any 
     member state of the United Nations to trust in our word, but 
     to send the weapons inspectors to our country to look 
     wherever they wish unconditionally. This means unconditional 
     access anywhere, including presidential sites in accordance 
     with

[[Page E1985]]

     a 1998 signed agreement between Iraq and the United Nations--
     an agreement that ensures respect for Iraq's sovereignty and 
     allows for transparency in the work of the inspectors. We 
     could never make this claim with such openness if we did not 
     ourselves know there is nothing to be found. Still, we 
     continue to read statements by officials of the United States 
     and the United Kingdom that it is not enough that Hans Blix, 
     head of the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and 
     Inspection Commission, and his team of inspectors have 
     unconditional access. They say this is because the Iraqi 
     government may be hiding weapons that will not be found, or 
     is moving weapons from place to place, or is developing new 
     weapons in roving vans or in underground locations.
       The United Nations officials with whom our government has 
     worked on these matters know that these concerns have no 
     foundation. In December 1998, when the United Nations weapons 
     inspection team left Iraq on the orders of Richard Butler, 
     the chief United Nations arms inspector at the time, it had 
     exhausted all possibilities after seven years of repeatedly 
     examine all possible sites; only small discrepancies existed.
       It is now widely conceded that Iraq possesses no nuclear 
     weapons and that we could not develop them without building 
     facilities that could be spotted by satellite. Since 1999, we 
     have allowed the International Atomic Energy Agency to visit 
     Iraq. If it wishes, it can inspect any building anywhere. The 
     agency's inspectors will find nothing untoward.
       Scott Ritter, who led many United Nations inspections, has 
     said that he questions whether Iraq possesses biological 
     weapons. Mr. Ritter also has been on CNN in recent months 
     explaining that his inspection team destroyed plants that 
     could produce chemical weapons. If these plants were 
     reconstructed, Mr. Blix and his team would quickly find them 
     out. Building such weapons costs billions of dollars and 
     requires enormous facilities and huge power sources. The idea 
     that such projects could be moved around in trucks or stashed 
     away in presidential palaces stretches the bounds of 
     imagination.
       It is my belief that the American people are not aware of 
     this history because, in my opinion of my government, no 
     American political figure has been seriously interested in 
     discussing these matters with our government. The United 
     Nations was created in 1945 to provide a forum for nations in 
     conflict to come together to work out their disagreements. It 
     was designed expressly for the purpose of making the use of 
     force an absolute last resort.
       For more than 11 years, the people of Iraq suffered under 
     United Nations economic sanctions, which have been kept in 
     place largely by American influence. According to statistics 
     compiled by the Iraq Ministry of Health, these sanctions have 
     caused the death of more than 1.7 million of our citizens. 
     The embargo has been so severe that we have been prevented 
     from importing chemicals needed for our sewage, water and 
     sanitation facilities.
       At the same time, the last three American presidents have 
     stated that these sanctions could not be lifted as long as 
     our president, Saddam Hussein, remains the nation's leader.
       Iraq is not a threat to its neighbors. It certainly is not 
     a threat to the United States or any of its interests in the 
     Middle East. Once the United Nations inspection team comes 
     back into my country and gets up to speed, I am confident 
     that it will certify that Iraq has no weapons of mass 
     destruction--be they chemical, biological or nuclear. Such 
     certification we hope, will remove the shadow of war and help 
     restore peace between our nations.

     

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