[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 32 (Thursday, February 27, 2003)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2909-S2912]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                  IRAQ

  Mr. BENNETT. Mr. President, this morning's Washington Post has an 
especially long editorial. Indeed, it takes up the entire length of the 
editorial page. It is entitled ``Drumbeat on Iraq, a Response to 
Readers.''
  I have a dear friend in Utah who wrote me. She was distraught--is 
distraught, I am sure--about the prospect of going to war and expressed 
a great many concerns. I have been in the process of constructing what 
I hope is a responsible and thoughtful response to her concerns. As I 
read the editorial in this morning's Washington Post, I found that it 
does a better job than I could do of summarizing many, if not most, of 
the issues about which she is concerned. I want to read from sections 
of the editorial and then ask unanimous consent that it be printed in 
the Record at the end of my remarks.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  (See exhibit 1.)
  Mr. BENNETT. In the editorial they say:

       The right question, though, is not, ``Is war risky?'' but 
     ``Is inaction less so?'' No one can provide more than a 
     judgment in reply. But the world is already a dangerous 
     place. Anthrax has been wielded in Florida, New York and 
     Washington. Terrorists have struck repeatedly and with 
     increased strength over the past decade. Are the United 
     States and its allies ultimately safer if they back down 
     again and leave Saddam Hussein secure? Or does safety lie in 
     making clear that his kind of outlaw behavior will not be 
     tolerated and in helping Iraq become a peaceable nation that 
     offers no haven to terrorists? We would say the latter. . . .

  As I say, I could not have put it better, which is why I have quoted 
it. I have raised the question on the floor before: What are the 
consequences if we do not follow through in Iraq? Some have said let's 
just leave the troops in place. And that means Iraq remains contained.
  Leaving the troops in place is not an option. We must understand that 
the troops are where they are, poised to move into Iraq, because of the 
agreement of the governments in Qatar, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia, among 
others. Those governments will not allow our troops to remain on their 
soil indefinitely. They will not allow those troops to remain there 
while we contain Saddam Hussein for 6 months or 12 months or 12 years, 
which has been the period of ``containment'' that we have seen up until 
now. We must either withdraw those troops and say we are

[[Page S2910]]

not going to move ahead militarily or, if Saddam Hussein does not 
disarm in accordance with the U.N. resolutions, those troops will move 
forward into his territory. We have no other choice: Move forward or 
withdraw.
  For those who say the inspectors should be allowed to do their job, 
we must understand that the only reason the inspectors are there is 
because the troops are there. So we are coming down to the decision 
point, that is very clear.
  Again, back to the editorial:

       Some argue now that, because Saddam Hussein has not in the 
     intervening half decade used his arsenal, Mr. Clinton was 
     wrong. . . .

  I should say that the editorial quotes President Clinton as outlining 
the case against Saddam Hussein in 1998.

       Some would argue now that, because Saddam Hussein has not 
     in the intervening half decade used his arsenal, Mr. Clinton 
     was wrong and the world can rest assured that Iraq is 
     adequately ``contained.'' Given what we know about how 
     containment erodes over time; about Saddam Hussein's single-
     mindedness compared with the inattention and divisions of 
     other nations; and about the ease with which deadly weapons 
     can move across borders, we do not trust such an assurance. 
     Mr. Clinton understood, as Mr. Bush understands, that no 
     president can bet his nation's safety on the hope that Iraq 
     is ``contained.'' We respect our readers who believe that war 
     is the worst option. But we believe that, in this case, long-
     term peace will be better served by strength than by 
     concessions.

  There is one other issue that was raised by my friend in Utah to 
which the editorial does not speak. This is the issue of first strike. 
My friend says we cannot cross the line of having the United States be 
involved in a first strike against a nation that has not attacked us.
  One of the arguments I have heard on this score is that if we do it, 
we will set a precedent that will allow other nations to do it. Other 
nations that we do not want to do it will say we can do it because the 
United States did.
  If I may, without being disrespectful to that argument, I would point 
out that Adolph Hitler did not need a precedent from the United States 
to attack Poland. He made up his own excuse. He pretended that Poland 
had attacked him. He dressed prisoners in Polish military uniforms, 
murdered them, and then had them found by German soldiers on German 
soil who said they were shot as they tried to invade Germany.
  The setting of a precedent by the United States or the not setting of 
a precedent by the United States will have absolutely no effect on the 
actions of a brutal dictator who decides to attack his neighbors in a 
first strike fashion. Saddam Hussein didn't quote precedent when he 
attacked Kuwait in the early 1990s. He went ahead and did it, and would 
have done it again whether he had precedent or not.
  Having said that, however, I want to review a little bit of American 
history. It may not be history of which we are proud, for those who say 
we have never committed a first strike, but it is history nonetheless 
of which we must be aware. I have not taken the time to research all 
examples of this because my memory provides me with enough to make the 
point.
  I remember when Lyndon Johnson sent the Marines into the Dominican 
Republic, for what purpose I cannot recall. But this was not a country 
that had attacked us and we sent military forces in there on the 
grounds that there was some American interest that had to be protected.
  Ronald Reagan sent the Marines into Grenada. His reason was that the 
legitimate Government of Grenada requested it.
  In his book, ``The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Empire,'' Brian 
Crozier referred to the American military action in Grenada as one of 
the key turning points in the cold war. He said if the United States 
had not moved into Grenada and removed the Communist government there, 
the cold war would have lasted considerably longer and been more 
devastating.
  There was no international clamor against President Reagan when he 
did this. He believed it was in America's best interests, and at least 
one historian has said it was not only in America's best interests, it 
was in the world's best interests for Ronald Reagan to have done what 
he did in Grenada.
  In the waning days of his Presidency, the first President Bush sent 
American troops into Somalia. Somalia had not attacked us and did not 
represent any threat. The troops were there presumably on a 
humanitarian mission, but they were sent in to deal with a military 
situation in that country that President Bush thought had to be dealt 
with. Those troops were withdrawn by the Clinton administration. But, 
once again, this was not a circumstance where America had been attacked 
but one where an American President sent American troops and there was 
no international outcry, no international complaint.
  Shortly after I came to the Senate, President Clinton invaded Haiti. 
Our former colleague, Sam Nunn, was in Haiti just prior to the time 
when the American military entered that country, and he debriefed a 
number of us after he came back. He pointed out that the only reason 
there was not bloodshed when the American troops entered Haiti was 
because the former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Colin Powell, 
went with Senator Nunn and former President Jimmy Carter to Haiti and 
General Powell was able to convince the Haitian general in charge of 
their military that it was not dishonorable for the Haitian general to 
save the lives of his troops and allow the Americans to come in without 
military opposition.
  As I recall it from Senator Nunn, the Haitian general was determined 
that it was his duty as a military man to resist any invasion of his 
country, no matter how hopeless that resistance might be. And he 
gathered his family around him, his wife and his children, hugged them 
together and said: This is our last night on Earth because tomorrow the 
Americans are invading and I will be killed.
  As I say, General Powell sat down with the Haitian general, convinced 
him that his first duty as a military officer was to protect the lives 
of his troops, and that he was not doing a dishonorable thing if he did 
not mount a hopeless resistance against the Americans.
  Once again, there was no international outcry against the American 
decision to send troops into Haiti. Looking back on it, it was not 
necessarily a wise thing to have done. We replaced a brutal dictator 
much beloved by American conservatives with a brutal dictator much 
beloved by American liberals. But the average Haitian has not seen any 
improvement in his or her lifestyle. Indeed, those who have been to 
Haiti recently tell me things are worse now than they were before the 
Americans invaded.
  Then we have the former Yugoslavia, a country that represented no 
threat to the United States and had not attacked the United States, but 
the United States led a national coalition in war upon that nation.
  Why did we do it? We did it because, under Milosevic, that nation had 
produced enough casualties within its borders to begin to approach 20 
percent of the size of the Holocaust. They killed that many of their 
own people, and the Americans felt that was a serious enough challenge 
to require us to go ahead.
  Now we have just heard a speech by the Senator from Michigan with 
respect to North Korea. We are being asked, Why are we not doing more 
with respect to North Korea? I will not respond to the Senator from 
Michigan or the Democratic leader in that vein. But I will point out 
that the attitude around the world and, indeed, here in the Senate is 
why the United States isn't taking care of this. If I might add one 
word to that question, Why isn't the United States taking care of this 
unilaterally? In other words, the United States should handle this all 
by themselves, according to speeches that are made here and in the 
world community.
  I run through this history simply to make this point: It is not 
accurate to say the proposed action in Iraq is either unprecedented in 
American history or illegal under American or international law. The 
action that is proposed with respect to Iraq is in the tradition of 
these humanitarian missions that I have described.
  Some of them have gone wrong. Some of them have turned out not to 
produce a humanitarian result. But in every case there was no prior 
complaint raised against the proposal that we do this on the ground 
that this was an unacceptable first strike against a

[[Page S2911]]

defenseless neighbor. In every circumstance, it went forward with full 
approval. I voted against the move into Haiti. But the President 
appropriately came to the Congress and got approval before he did it.
  President Bush has come to the Congress, and by a 77-23 vote in this 
body and an equally lopsided vote in the other body, has approval 
before he goes into Iraq. This is not a stealth attack like Pearl 
Harbor under the cover of night. This is something that has been 
debated and laid before the United Nations. The United Nations, by a 
15-0 vote in the Security Council, announced to Iraq if she did not 
disarm, she would face serious consequences, and serious consequences 
in United Nations speak means war. This is not something that is done 
hidden or in a corner or in the dark.
  So we come back now to the fundamental question: Is it safer to go 
ahead with an operation in Iraq than it is to pull down the American 
troops and bring them home? I agree with the editorial writers of the 
Washington Post. This is an agonizing decision. This is not one to be 
made lightly, and I am sure from conversations with him that the 
President is not going to make it lightly. He is going to weigh all of 
the consequences. But I believe in the end he will come to the same 
conclusion that the Washington Post editorial writers have come to and 
that I have come to. Whatever the unknowns on either side, the present 
evidence suggests that the most dangerous thing we could do with 
respect to the situation in Iraq is to back down if Iraq does not 
comply with the United Nations resolution. To pull our troops out of 
Iraq does not comply with the demands that the world has made upon it. 
The safest thing to do if Iraq does not comply is to carry through with 
the resolution that was adopted on this floor by an overwhelming 
margin, adopted in the Security Council of the United Nations 
unanimously, and not hold back.
  I yield the floor.

               [From the Washington Post, Feb. 27, 2003]

              ``Drumbeat'' on Iraq? A Response to Readers

       ``I have been a faithful reader of The Washington Post for 
     almost 10 years,'' a recent e-mail to this page begins. 
     ``Recently, however, I have grown tired of your bias and 
     endless drumbeating for war in Iraq.'' He's not the only one. 
     The national and international debate over Saddam Hussein's 
     weapons of mass destruction, and our editorials in favor of 
     disarming the dictator, have prompted a torrent of letters, 
     many approving and many critical. They are for the most part 
     thoughtful and serious; the antiwar letters in particular are 
     often angry and anguished as well. ``It is truly depressing 
     to witness the depths Washington Post editors have reached in 
     their jingoistic rush to war,'' another reader writes. It's a 
     serious charge, and it deserves a serious response.
       That answer, given the reference to ``Washington Post 
     editors,'' probably needs to begin with a restatement of the 
     separation at The Post between news and editorial opinion 
     functions. Those of us who write editorials have no influence 
     over editors and reporters who cover the news and who are 
     committed to offering the fairest and most complete 
     journalism possible about the standoff with Iraq. They in 
     turn have no influence over us.
       For our part, we might begin with that phrase ``rush to 
     war.'' In fact there is nothing sudden or precipitous about 
     our view that Saddam Hussein poses a grave danger. In 1990 
     and 1991 we supported many months of diplomacy and pressure 
     to persuade the Iraqi dictator to withdraw his troops from 
     Kuwait, the neighboring country he had invaded. When he 
     failed to do so, we supported the use of force to restore 
     Kuwait's independence. While many of the same Democrats who 
     oppose force now opposed it then also, we believe war was the 
     correct option--though it was certainly not, at the time, the 
     only choice. When the war ended, we supported--in hindsight 
     too unquestioningly--a cease-fire agreement that left Saddam 
     Hussein in power. But it was an agreement, imposed by the 
     U.N. Security Council, that demanded that he give up his 
     dangerous weapons.
       In 1997 and 1998, we strongly backed President Clinton when 
     he vowed that Iraq must finally honor its commitments to the 
     United Nations to give up its nuclear, biological and 
     chemical weapons--and we strongly criticized him when he 
     retreated from those vows. Mr. Clinton understood the stakes. 
     Iraq, he said, was a ``rogue state with weapons of mass 
     destruction, ready to use them or provide them to terrorists, 
     drug traffickers or organized criminals who travel the world 
     among us unnoticed.''
       When we cite Mr. Clinton's perceptive but ultimately empty 
     comments, it is in part to chide him and other Democrats who 
     take a different view now that a Republican is in charge. But 
     it has a more serious purpose too. Mr. Clinton could not 
     muster the will, or the domestic or international support, to 
     force Saddam Hussein to live up to the promises he had 
     made in 1991, though even then the danger was well 
     understood. Republicans who now line up behind President 
     Bush were in many cases particularly irresponsible; when 
     Mr. Clinton did bomb Iraqi weapons sites in 1998, some GOP 
     leaders accused him of seeking only to distract the nation 
     from his impeachment worries. Through the end of Mr. 
     Clinton's tenure and the first year of Mr. Bush's 
     presidency, Saddam Hussein built up his power, beat back 
     sanctions and found new space to rearm--all with the 
     support of France and Russia and the acquiescence of the 
     United States.
       After Sept. 11, 2001, many people of both parties said--and 
     we certainly hoped--that the country had moved beyond such 
     failures of will and politicization of deadly foreign 
     threats. An outlaw dictator, in open defiance of U.N. 
     resolutions, unquestionably possessing and pursuing 
     biological and chemical weapons, expressing support for the 
     Sept. 11 attacks: Surely the nation would no longer dither in 
     the face of such a menace. Now it seems again an open 
     question. To us, risks that were clear before seem even 
     clearer now.
       But what of our ``jingoism,'' our ``drumbeating''? Probably 
     no editorial page sin could be more grievous than whipping up 
     war fever for some political or trivial purpose. And we do 
     not take lightly the risks of war--to American and Iraqi 
     soldiers and civilians first of all. We believe that the Bush 
     administration has only begun to prepare the public for the 
     sacrifices that the nation and many young Americans might 
     bear during and after a war. And there is a long list of 
     terrible things that could go wrong: anthrax dispersed, 
     moderate regimes imperiled, Islamist recruiting spurred, oil 
     wells set afire.
       The first question, though, is not ``Is war risky?'' but 
     ``Is inaction less so?'' No one can provide more than a 
     judgment in reply. But the world is already a dangerous 
     place, Anthrax has been wielded in Florida, New York and 
     Washington. Terrorists have struck repeatedly and with 
     increasing strength over the past decade. Are the United 
     States and its allies ultimately safer if they back down 
     again and leave Saddam Hussein secure? Or does safety lie in 
     making clear that his kind of outlaw behavior will not be 
     tolerated and in helping Iraq become a peaceable nation that 
     offers no haven to terrorists? We would say the latter while 
     acknowledging the magnitude of the challenge, both during and 
     especially after any war that may have to be fought. And we 
     would say also that not only terrible things are possible: To 
     free the Iraqi people from the sadistic repression of Saddam 
     Hussein, while not the primary goal of a war, would surely be 
     a blessing.
       Nor is it useful merely to repeat that war ``should only be 
     a last resort,'' as the latest French-German-Russian 
     resolution states, or that, as French President Jacques 
     Chirac said Monday, Iraq must disarm ``because it represents 
     a danger for the region and maybe the world . . . But we 
     believe this disarmament must happen peacefully.'' Like 
     everyone else, we hope it does happen peacefully. But if it 
     does not--if Saddam Hussein refuses as he has for a dozen 
     years--should that refusal be accommodated?
       War in fact has rarely been the last resort for the United 
     States. In very recent times, the nation could have allowed 
     Saddam Huss- sein to swallow Kuwait. It could have allowed 
     Slobodan Milosevic to expel 1 million refugees from 
     Kosovo. In each case, the nation and its allies fought 
     wars of choice. Even the 2001 campaign against Afghanistan 
     was not a ``last resort,'' though it is now remembered as 
     an inevitable war of self-defense. Many Americans argued 
     that the Taliban had not attacked the United States and 
     should not be attached; that what was needed was a police 
     action against Osama bin Laden. We believed they were 
     wrong and Mr. Bush was right, though he will be vindicated 
     in history only if the United States and its allies stay 
     focused on Afghanistan and its reconstruction.
       So the real questions are whether every meaningful 
     alternative has been exhausted, and if so whether war is wise 
     as well as justified. The risks should be minimized. Everyone 
     agrees, for example, that the United States would be stronger 
     before and during a war if jointed by many allies, and even 
     better positioned if backed by the United Nations. If waiting 
     a month, or three months, would ensure such backing, the wait 
     would be worthwhile.
       But the history is not encouraging. The Security Council 
     agreed unanimously in early November that Iraq was a danger; 
     that inspectors could do no more than verify a voluntary 
     disarmament; and that a failure to disarm would be considered 
     a ``material breach.'' Now all agree that Saddam Hussein has 
     not cooperated, and yet some countries balk at the 
     consequences--as they have, time and again, since 1991. We 
     have seen no evidence that an additional three months would 
     be helpful. Nor does it strike us as serious to argue that 
     the war should be fought if Mr. Chirac and German Chancellor 
     Gerhard Schroeder agree, but not if they do not. If the war 
     is that optional, it should not be fought, even if those 
     leaders do agree; if it is essential to U.S. national 
     security, their objections ultimately cannot be dispositive.
       In 1998, Mr. Clinton explained to the nation why U.S. 
     national security was, in fact, in danger. ``What if he fails 
     to comply and we fail to act, or we take some ambiguous third 
     route, which gives him yet more opportunities to develop this 
     program of weapons of

[[Page S2912]]

     mass destruction?  . . . Well, he will conclude that the 
     international community has lost its will. He will then 
     conclude that he can go right on and do more to rebuild an 
     arsenal of devastating destruction. And some day, some way, I 
     guarantee you he'll use the arsenal.''
       Some argue now that, because Saddam Hussein has not in the 
     intervening half-decade use his arsenal, Mr. Clinton was 
     wrong and the world can rest assured that Iraq is adequately 
     ``contained.'' Given what we know about how containment 
     erodes over time; about Saddam Hussein's single-mindedness 
     compared with the inattention and divisions of other nations; 
     and about the ease with which deadly weapons can move across 
     borders, we do not trust such an assurance. Mr. Clinton 
     understood, as Mr. Bush understands, that no president can 
     bet his nation's safety on the hope that Iraq is 
     ``contained.'' We respect our readers who believe that war is 
     the worst option. But we believe that, in this case, long-
     term peace will be better served by strength than by 
     concessions.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania.
  Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I send a resolution to the desk and ask 
unanimous consent that it be held at the desk.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? Without objection, it is 
so ordered.
  Mr. SANTORUM. Thank you, Mr. President.

                          ____________________