[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 38 (Monday, March 10, 2003)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3401-S3402]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                  IRAQ

  Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Sunday, 
March 9, 2003 Washington Post editorial entitled ``Moment of Decision'' 
be printed in the Record at the appropriate place.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  (See exhibit 1.)
  Mr. STEVENS. I believe this editorial accurately describes the 
current impasse at the U.N. Security Council over whether to enforce 
Security Council Resolution 1441.
  That resolution gave Saddam Hussein a final opportunity to disarm and 
provided for ``serious consequences'' should he fail to comply. It is 
now clear that Saddam Hussein is in violation of Resolution 1441, yet 
some member states on the Security Council are using this forum to 
press an unrelated agenda that is hostile to the interests of the 
United States.
  By pursuing this course of action, these member states are 
contributing to the global threat that Saddam Hussein poses and 
undermining the very purpose of the United Nations--to ensure the peace 
and security of the international community.
  We know that Saddam Hussein possesses weapons of mass destruction. We 
know that Saddam Hussein will use those weapons against those who 
oppose his tyranny. We know that Saddam Hussein has failed to disarm in 
violation of Security Council Resolution 1441.
  Yet, rather than holding Saddam Hussein accountable for his defiance, 
these member states have reduced the Security Council to a debating 
society, hardly relevant to the tough decisions the United States and 
its allies face in the war against terrorism.
  Only by standing together will the United Nations finally fulfill its 
commitment of ensuring global peace and security.

                               Exhibit 1

                [From the Washington Post, Mar. 9, 2003]

                           Moment of Decision

       The Debate on Iraq at the United Nations Security Council 
     no longer concerns whether Iraq has agreed to disarm; in 
     fact, it hardly concerns Iraq at all. At Friday's meeting, 
     once again, neither chief U.N. inspector Hans Blix nor any 
     member of the council contended that Saddam Hussein has 
     complied with the terms of Resolution 1441, which offered him 
     a ``final opportunity'' to give up weapons of mass 
     destruction. But most members chose not to discuss the 
     ``serious consequences'' the council unanimously agreed to in 
     the event of such non-compliance. Some, such as Mexico and 
     Chile, essentially argued that Iraqi disarmament was less 
     important than avoiding a split of the Security Council. 
     Others, such as Russia and France, sought to change the 
     subject from Iraq to the United States' global role. They 
     argued for using Iraq to establish that international crises 
     should be managed solely by the Security Council--and not 
     through military action that necessarily must be led by the 
     United States.
       It's painful to imagine Saddam Hussein's satisfaction in 
     observing the council once again descend into internal 
     quarrels rather than hold him accountable for his defiance of 
     its resolutions. But it's not hard to understand much of the 
     diversionary argument. Few countries outside of the Middle 
     East feel directly threatened by Iraq, other than the United 
     States. Many have an understandable aversion to war when 
     their own citizens' lives don't appear to be at risk. Some, 
     notably Russia and France, have been unsuccessfully seeking 
     for a decade to check American influence and create a 
     ``multipolar world''; the Iraq crisis offers a fresh platform 
     for an agenda more important to them than the menace of a 
     Middle Eastern dictator. The Security Council's action on 
     Iraq ``implies the international community's ability to 
     resolve current or future crises . . . a vision of the world, 
     a concept of the role of the United Nations,'' said French 
     Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin. ``There may be some 
     who believe that these problems can be resolved by force, 
     thereby creating a new order. But this is not what France 
     believes.'' To oppose the use of force in Iraq, in other 
     words, is to oppose the exercise of the United States' 
     unrivaled power in the world.
       We share the concern of those on the council who spoke of 
     the damage of an enduring rift over Iraq--damage for which 
     the Bush administration's clumsy and often high-handed 
     diplomacy will be partly responsible.

[[Page S3402]]

     Yet we would argue that the only way to preserve 
     international cohesion is for the council to face up to the 
     tough question that it has been avoiding for weeks--not world 
     order or U.S. power but Saddam Hussein's defiance of an 
     unambiguous Security Council disarmament order. In their bid 
     for global opinion, the French and Russians now invoke 
     principles they would never agree to if they were applied to 
     Chechnya or Francophone Africa. As President Bush pointed out 
     in his news conference Thursday, Iraq's continued stockpiling 
     of banned weapons is a direct threat to the United States, 
     and the country has a right under the U.N. Charter to defend 
     itself against that threat.
       By taking its case to the United Nations, the Bush 
     administration tested whether the Security Council--which 
     only rarely in the past 50 years has been able to respond to 
     the world's crises--could serve as a place where such threats 
     could be addressed. Yet after six months of intensive effort, 
     France, Russia, Germany and others refuse to accept the 
     consequences of the process they claim to favor. They would 
     rather the Security Council abandon its own resolutions, or 
     split apart, than endorse a U.S. use of force against an 
     outlaw tyrant. If their goal is really to preserve the U.N. 
     security system, they should join in supporting the 
     enforcement of U.N. resolutions; if it is merely to contain 
     the United States, they should not be allowed to succeed. The 
     United States, for its part, must remain open to reasonable 
     compromise. If a few more weeks of diplomacy will serve to 
     assuage the legitimate concerns of undecided council members, 
     the effort--even at this late date--would be worth making.

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