[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 32 (Thursday, February 27, 2003)]
[House]
[Pages H1446-H1447]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            THE IRAQ CRISIS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, President Bush, from all appearances, 
seems poised to attack the country of Iraq sometime in the next 2 or 3 
weeks according to news reports, according to reading a bit between the 
lines of statements coming from the Bush administration. The 
fundamental question about whether or not the United States should 
launch a preemptive strike without U.N. support against Iraq, the 
fundamental question is whether that attack against Iraq makes the 
United States a safer country and whether it makes American civilians 
traveling abroad, living abroad more importantly, perhaps, living in 
the United States, whether it makes all of us safer. The CIA says no.
  A CIA analysis said that the chances of what they call a blowback, 
meaning attacks against civilians from terrorists abroad or terrorists 
inside the

[[Page H1447]]

United States, that attacks against civilians, the chances increase 
according to the CIA, so-called blowback, the term they used, the 
chances increase if we launch a preemptive strike against Iraq without 
U.N. support. Several four-star generals testified in the other body 
and said that an attack against Iraq without U.N. support, a preemptive 
attack will, in their words, supercharge al Qaeda recruiting. Common 
sense simply tells you that the U.S. will not be a safer place, will be 
a more dangerous place, that civilians in this country will in fact be 
in more danger if we unilaterally attack Iraq. Common sense says that, 
Mr. Speaker, because if Saddam Hussein is backed into a corner, Saddam 
Hussein, who has not attacked anyone in the last 10 years, if he is 
backed into a corner with whatever weapons he might have, the chances 
are he is much more likely to attack the United States if in fact that 
happens.
  Mr. Speaker, this country for the last five decades has followed a 
military doctrine of containment and deterrence and diplomacy. Dwight 
Eisenhower when urged by some advisers and some newspapers similar to 
the actions of the Washington Post, those kind of jingoist, expansion, 
let's-get-into-war newspapers that encouraged him, Dwight Eisenhower, 
to go to war against Stalin and the Soviets, Dwight Eisenhower said, 
``That's not what we do in this country. We don't launch preemptive 
attacks against people. Instead we contain, we deter, we use 
diplomacy.''
  Dwight Eisenhower and others contained and deterred and used 
diplomacy with Joseph Stalin and the Soviets to contain them. We used 
the same containment and deterrence and diplomacy with the People's 
Republic of China and Mao Zedong. John Kennedy used the same kind of 
deterrence and containment against Fidel Castro and the Cubans to keep 
them in check, to keep them from expanding. And the United States 
Government, George Bush, Sr., President Clinton, and the first couple 
of years of President Bush, we have done the same containment and 
deterrence to keep Saddam Hussein in check.
  Now if we launch a preemptive attack against Iraq, go against a 
country that has not attacked us, a country that we know has no ties to 
the terrorists who attacked our country, we know Saudi Arabia has ties. 
In fact the people who attacked our country, most of them were from 
Saudi Arabia. We also know that the Saudi royal family happens to be 
friends of the Bush family. Saudi Arabia is still our friend. We do not 
attack them even though they have ties to al Qaeda.
  We are not attacking North Korea, even though we know they have 
nuclear weapons. We are not attacking Iran, even though they are a part 
of the axis of evil. The President has decided that we are about to 
attack Iraq, a country where we have contained and deterred and kept 
Saddam Hussein in check.
  But, Mr. Speaker, if we decide to change our military doctrine of 
containment, deterrence and diplomacy, to change our military doctrine 
that we have followed for the last five or six decades, and 
preemptively strike a country that has not attacked us, the message 
around the world, the message to the Russians is going to be, it is 
okay to chase down Chechen terrorists and go into Georgia and attack 
them. The message to the Chinese will be, it is okay to clamp down 
harder on Tibet, it is okay maybe to invade Taiwan because the United 
States launched a preemptive attack, and maybe it is okay for the world 
powers to engage in that kind of lawlessness. And most problematically 
and most dangerously and most frighteningly, Mr. Speaker, it will say 
to India that maybe it is okay to launch a preemptive strike against 
Pakistan over Kashmir. It will say to Pakistan, maybe it is okay to 
launch a preemptive strike against India over Kashmir. Those happen to 
be, Mr. Speaker, two countries that have nuclear weapons.
  So if we go against the U.N. decision, if we go into Iraq without 
U.N. support preemptively, first of all it clearly makes our country 
more dangerous because you can count on as we attack Iraq, you can 
count on Al-Jazeera taping hostilities and taping casualties of Iraqi 
civilians and the message that that is going to send to the Arab world 
of destabilization, making the world a more dangerous place to be.

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