[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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