[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 37 (Friday, March 7, 2003)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3356-S3358]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             WAR WITH IRAQ

  Mr. DODD. Madam President, first, I say to my friend from Virginia, 
this is an opportunity for us to spend a few minutes talking about the 
issue of war with Iraq. We all listened last evening to the comments of 
the President during his press conference. We all have great respect, 
obviously, for the Presidency of the United States. I would not call 
the President's press conference a Churchillian moment, but certainly 
the President expressed his views on what he believes ought to be done.
  On October 11, 2002, I voted for H.J. Res. 114, a resolution 
providing the President with the authority to use force against Iraq if 
proved necessary. The vote on that resolution was 77 to 23. I voted for 
the entire resolution including language which requires the President 
to first determine that ``reliance by the United States on further 
diplomatic or other peaceful means alone either will not adequately 
protect the national security of the United States against the 
continuing threat posed by Iraq or is not likely to lead to the 
enforcement of all relevant United Nations Security Resolutions.'' The 
particular requirement seems to have gotten lost in recent discussions 
about Iraq and deserves repeating in the context of our debate this 
morning.
  My concern is that the Bush administration, at this juncture, has not 
made the case that we have reached the point that we can say that 
diplomacy has failed.
  I do not know of anyone who disagrees with the notion that we would 
be far better off with Iraq disarmed. Every person I know supports that 
conclusion. The debate, if you will, is not over whether Iraq should be 
disarmed but whether there are means short of military conflict for 
doing so. Knowing all the hazards and dangers that will arise when we 
send American service men and women into combat to achieve that result, 
we must not take that decision precipitously, without first exhausting 
other options, particularly diplomatic options.
  As I stated earlier, I voted for H.J. Res 114 last fall, and I would 
vote for it again because I believe force, coupled with with diplomacy, 
are needed in this circumstance. Threats of force alone without 
diplomacy can too often lead us to unnecessary armed conflict and 
costly destruction and loss of life.
  We fail sometimes to recognize and understand the value of diplomacy 
and how well it has worked for us in times past. We saw diplomacy at 
work during the Kennedy administration when President Kennedy diffused 
the Cuban missile crisis. We saw it at work as well in the Carter 
administration when Sadat and Begin came together at Camp David to end 
conflict between Israel and Egypt. We saw it at work in 1993 when, 
through the efforts of former-President Carter in North Korea, we were 
able to diffuse a situation that was getting very serious. Diplomacy 
has successfully resolved many disputes large and small. On each 
occasion it requires our President to put his credibility on the line 
and work diligently day in and day out to bring those warring parties 
together to avoid the conflict that would have ensued.
  I think too often we fail to appreciate the value of what can be done 
through diplomacy. There are countless examples throughout our history.
  My plea this morning, is not that we renounce the use of force 
multilateral or unilateral--in the case of Iraq or any other 
circumstance where US national security interests are at stake. I would 
never support a resolution that would deprive our Nation of the 
opportunity to protect and defend its security and its sovereignty, 
including by the unilateral use of force. My only concern is that we 
ought not rush unnecessarily to that conclusion when other options 
still remain. Do we really want to unnecessarily put at risk the lives 
of innocent Iraqi people or more importantly the lives of our own young 
men and women in uniform who have been deployed to the Middle East and 
await the orders of the Commander in Chief?

  My plea today is that the President seriously consider giving the 
U.N. effort the diplomatic track a bit more time. Obviously, there is a 
threat in Iraq. We all know that. But it is a threat at this moment 
that is being effectively contained by the presence of international 
inspectors and the threat of force. Yes, Iraq is a threat, but there 
are graver and more immediate threats confronting the United States. I 
believe that North Korea poses a far greater and far more immediate 
danger to the United States and the region. U.S./Korean experts across 
the political spectrum share that view.
  I am concerned that our impatience over Iraq is doing great harm to 
our relationships with our long standing friends and allies. U.N. 
Security Council Resolution 1441 did not contain an end date by which 
the inspectors were to conclude their mission. However, from the very 
beginning, the administration showed very little patience for the 
inspections process. Almost before it began, members of the Bush 
Administration were ridiculing the process, suggesting it would never 
work anyway; why are we bothering with it?
  One might ask the basic question: If we never thought it was going to 
work, why did we support U.N. Security Resolution 1441 in the first 
place?
  The problem of Iraq and Saddam Hussein is not weeks old, it is years 
old. We all know that. Nonetheless, we drafted, worked, suggested, and 
supported the resolution that called for an inspections process. There 
is no certainty that an inspections process will necessarily succeed, 
given the size of the country and the difficulties involved, but we 
voted to send inspectors to Iraq and we supported the terms of their 
mission as spelled out in the text of the resolution.
  Yet as the inspection mission was getting underway, the 
administration seemed to already have lost patience with it. Perhaps 
that is why other members of the Security Council began to question 
whether the United States was ever genuinely committed to an 
inspections regime.
  U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix spoke before the United Nations this 
morning. Let me share with my colleagues some of his conclusions--very 
significant conclusions in my view. Mr. Blix said that the inspectors 
were in a better position to carry out their work than they had been in 
the 1990s because of the existence of international pressure. The 
President should claim victory that his policy is succeeding--the 
combination of diplomacy and the threat of force is bearing fruit.
  We ought to be celebrating the fact that the inspectors have made 
progress in disarming Iraq. I do not think that a call for inspections 
without a threat of force would have produced positive results. The 
combination of the threat of force and the inspections process is, 
according to those we have asked to perform these duties, producing far 
better results than we ever could have imagined.
  Mr. Blix went on to say that there is no air surveillance over the 
entire country, and that inspectors can move freely anywhere in Iraq. 
Even with enhanced Iraqi cooperation, Mr. Blix stated that the mission 
would need some additional months not years to complete its work.
  I am not interested in seeing the inspections process prolonged 
indefinitely. I do not think that is in anyone's interest. We have men 
and women in uniform deployed abroad, waiting for orders. We cannot 
keep them there indefinitely without having the necessary rotations. 
That poses some problems. I hope we never reach the conclusion that 
simply because we have deployed our forces to the Middle East, we see 
that action as putting our credibility on the line if we don't then 
take military action, even though diplomacy may be working.
  American service men and women certainly understand that when they 
are called to duty, there may be times

[[Page S3357]]

they are asked to put their lives on the line. They also know there may 
be times when they are going to be asked to wait. Certainly, we need to 
understand the conduct of this particular delicate situation. Asking 
our men and women in uniform to be patient as we try to see if we 
cannot resolve this problem without putting them in harm's way is not 
an irresponsible way to proceed at all, given the fact we may get 
exactly what we are seeking as a result of the combined efforts of 
diplomacy and threat of force.
  I believe this process is working and the President ought to claim 
victory, in a sense, because as a result of his efforts, we are getting 
the job done better than we might have imagined we could.
  In a sense, I almost get the feeling we are trying to snatch defeat 
from the jaws of victory by moving away from a process that appears to 
be working despite all the difficulty surrounding it.
  Obviously, if we want the multilateral support of our allies then we 
need to allow the U.N. effort some time. I can make a strong case that 
we probably do not need multilateral forces to win the military contest 
here. I am quite confident the United States military can more than 
adequately perform the challenges posed in Iraq militarily. But the 
problem becomes greater when you think of the aftermath, of how we 
manage that, how this event will affect other relationships we have 
where international cooperation is important.
  I say this with a great deal of lament. Diplomacy has been suffering 
terribly here over the last few years. This is not just my conclusion. 
This is the conclusion of the responsible people who have watched, 
tragically over the last 24 months, where diplomacy has not been 
working as well as it could. I don't want to digress very much. I will 
keep focused on the discussion in front of us, but from the outset 
there was a notion that international cooperation was somehow a sign of 
weakness; that, in fact, the comments of our friend from Alabama 
suggesting a moment ago that international organizations and the United 
Nations could not perform duties when asked to act and asked to get a 
job done, I disagree with.
  I have my difficulties with the performance of the U.N. from time to 
time, but I ask anyone to suggest what the world might look like if we 
did not have a U.N. system to respond all over the globe to every 
imaginable crisis that emerges. The idea of deriding and ridiculing and 
diminishing the role of the U.N. system is not in our interest, and I 
don't think it is in our interest to ridicule our allies in Europe and 
elsewhere. These are good friends. They have been and will continue to 
be. But we need to work at those relationships to keep them strong. 
Unfortunately, we have not been doing that. And, we are paying a price 
for that. That is why the American public and so many around the world 
are worried about unnecessarily taking unilateral action. Particularly 
a preemptive unilateral action.
  Having said that, I applaud the President's decision last night to go 
to the U.N. and to put a resolution on the table. I feared he might 
abandon the U.N. effort without doing so because some of his advisors 
have recommended this course of action. I commend the President for 
still being willing to try and get that international support. I hope a 
resolution can be crafted which our allies and others will feel 
comfortable supporting, one that gives the inspections more time to see 
if they can succeed. If I didn't feel time might work for us here, or 
that there was an imminent threat to our nations, then I would stand 
with those who would say we have to go forward now and unilaterally 
respond to the threat. I don't believe that moment has arrived.
  Last night the President said that the world has changed since 
September 11th. I agree with him. The administration's eyes obviously 
were opened to the fact we needed help and support from the nations in 
coping with the amorphous nature of the stateless and faceless 
terrorist organizations. We heard the great news in the last few days 
of the capture of some al-Qaida operatives. I would respectfully say 
that this would not have happened without international cooperation. So 
in this particular set of circumstances, we have seen the value of 
international cooperation.
  While Bush administration officials have seen the wisdom of 
cooperating with our allies in combating terrorist organizations, key 
administration policymakers still hold--too many of them--the 
fundamental belief that as the world's only remaining superpower, the 
United States does not need to consult or build the support from other 
nations in the conduct of foreign policy. They believe that we can 
singlehandedly decide who are good guys and bad guys, the members of 
the axis of evil, in the Bush administration's lexicon. It is this 
tension that brings us where we are in Iraq and North Korea.
  Now we have, of course, the paradox that the administration is in no 
particular hurry, it would appear, to resolve the North Korean problem 
which was precipitated in part, I argue, by our handling and engagement 
with Iraq. It has no patience in the case of Iraq to allow the 
inspections process to play out. I appreciate that the administration 
is trying to maintain the readiness of more than 200,000 American 
troops that are or will soon be in the region and that this cannot go 
on indefinitely without troop rotation. However, I strongly believe the 
American forces are carrying out an incredibly important mission, even 
if the order is never given to attack. Just being there has a 
tremendous value in terms of what we are trying to achieve in the 
Middle East.
  Their presence signals a seriousness and resolve on the part of the 
United States that Iraq must disarm. Iraq is, in fact, beginning, as we 
see here, to respond--not as quickly as I would like, not in the ways 
some might prefer--but Hans Blix has reported progress. We should not 
yet draw the conclusion that in U.N. effort has failed.
  I want to see Iraq disarm. Every American does. I believe as a way of 
doing this, at least a way worth trying to get this accomplished 
without resorting to force. The bellicose and public efforts by the 
administration to end the inspections process is going to have severe 
diplomatic costs in the months and years ahead. My hope is that we will 
be able to repair these relationships. The quick way we might do that 
is to allow this process to work a bit longer. If we do that, I think 
we can build the kind of support that is necessary to achieve not only 
the desired results in Iraq, but also to allow us to continue to build 
the relationships that are going to be critically important to deal 
with other pressing foreign policy concerns.
  We live in a world that absolutely requires international 
cooperation, and the United States must be a leader in this effort. The 
great leaders in the post-World-War-II period understood this. The 
great people we revere and talk about often, people like Omar Bradley 
and George Marshall, the Dulles brothers and others, who understood the 
value and the importance of international organizations. They were the 
architects of these institutions. They were the ones who argued so 
vociferously to create a U.N. system, international courts of justice, 
to build a NATO system. They understood the importance of international 
cooperation. They understood that even a great power such as ours could 
not solve all the world's problems single-handedly.
  Too often, as we engage in this debate, many Americans and many 
people across the globe have the impression that the United States no 
longer believes that international cooperation is important in the 
conduct of our foreign policy. I disagree with that profoundly.
  That worries this Senator very deeply. I will not take a backseat to 
anybody in my concern about Saddam Hussein. I would support the 
resolution which I voted for in October again today if it were the 
pending business of this body. I don't believe that the resolution 
calls upon the President to abandon diplomacy.
  For those reasons I would urge and encourage the President to 
continue his efforts with the framework of the U.N. Again, I want to 
compliment him for indicating he is going to go back to the U.N. in the 
coming days to see if we can get a resolution that will build the kind 
of international cooperation that is necessary. But I have this nagging 
fear that there are some in the President's inner circle who believe 
this is all a waste of time and effort, that it is not in our interests 
to do it,

[[Page S3358]]

and the sooner we move away from seeking international cooperation the 
better off we are going to be.
  That mentality seems to be gaining currency in the minds of far too 
many. That is a dangerous road to follow. It is one I hope and pray 
that the President does not take.
  Mr. President, let me associate myself with what others have said in 
the course of this debate. If or when the President orders U.S. Service 
Members into combat, I and every other member of this body will support 
these brave men and women one hundred percent and we will pray that 
they return home to their families unharmed.
  With those thoughts in mind, I thank my colleagues for the 
opportunity to express some views on this critical issue. I am 
certainly anxious to hear the thoughts of my colleagues as they express 
those during the remaining time of this debate.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, will the Senator allow me to have one or 
two questions, by way of a colloquy?
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I would like to do it. I understand the 
agreement goes to 12:30. I have not had an opportunity, and I have been 
here almost an hour. We extended the time shortly over on the other 
side.
  I will be glad to yield if we can work that out, but I would like an 
opportunity.
  Mr. WARNER. Why do we not just agree now to extend the time by 30 
minutes, equally divided between the two of us? That will take us to 
the hour of 1 o'clock.
  Mr. KENNEDY. That will be fine with me. I am glad if we agree the 
colloquy go maybe 5 or 6 minutes.

                          ____________________