[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 39 (Tuesday, March 11, 2003)]
[House]
[Pages H1735-H1739]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   AMERICA GOING TO WAR AGAINST IRAQ

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Burns). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 7, 2003, the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Van Hollen) 
is recognized for 60 minutes.
  Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, tonight I want to take some time to 
address one of the most serious questions facing our Nation today, 
whether we go to war against Iraq in the next few weeks.
  The tragic attacks upon our country on September 11, 2001, 
transformed our thinking about national security in this country. In 
the wake of September 11, the Bush administration rightly sought to 
define the fundamental mission of American power around the goal of 
fighting international terrorism. After September 11, the international 
community rallied behind America's war on terrorism with unprecedented 
unity and diplomatic, military, intelligence and other support. For the 
first time in its history, NATO invoked Article V of the Washington 
Treaty declaring the September 11 attack to be an attack on all 19 NATO 
member countries. Within 24 hours of its introduction by the United 
States, the U.N. Security Council passed a resolution unanimously 
calling on all member countries to support the war on terror.
  The subsequent U.S.-led military action against the Taliban forces in 
Afghanistan and the reconstruction efforts that followed received broad 
support from the international community.
  Now less than 18 months later, the situation has changed 
dramatically. Polls show that anti-American sentiment is rising around 
the world, and some 70 percent of the world's citizens believe that the 
United States presents the greatest threat to world peace today, ahead 
of Iraq and North Korea.
  U.S. relations with many of our traditional allies in the North 
Atlantic Alliance are more strained than at any point in that 
organization's history. Moderates in the Muslim world feel isolated and 
have begun to question their relationship with the United States. Our 
credibility has been damaged, and our moral authority eroded. Many 
serious threats to our security are not receiving the attention they 
deserve.
  How did we get to this state of affairs just 18 months after the 
world community united behind U.S. leadership in the war on terrorism? 
How did we so quickly squander the reservoir of goodwill that we had 
immediately after September 11?
  The answer lies squarely with the Bush administration's defense and 
foreign policies and the arrogance with which they have conducted those 
policies. Following the successful military campaign against the 
Taliban in Afghanistan, the administration began to redirect its 
energies toward Iraq and the removal of Saddam Hussein from power. In 
his 2002 State of the Union Address, his speech delivered just 4 months 
after the terrible al Qaeda attacks on our country, the President 
identified Iraq, Iran and North Korea as the Axis of Evil; but very 
quickly thereafter it became clear that the administration would focus 
its attention narrowly on just one of these, Iraq. And even while bin 
Laden, the architect of the September 11 attacks, was still at large, 
Saddam Hussein took his place as the symbol of the new threat facing 
America.
  Let me make something crystal clear here. Saddam Hussein is a brutal 
dictator and his quest for weapons of mass destruction does pose a 
threat. The question for our country is what is the nature and extent 
of that threat, and what is the best way for us to address it.
  I believe that our objective in Iraq should be Iraqi compliance with 
the U.N. resolutions that require Iraq to disarm and eliminate its 
weapons of mass destruction and its missiles that exceed the 93-mile 
range. I also believe that we must accomplish that objective in a way 
that strengthens rather than diminishes our national security. It would 
be a tragic irony indeed if in the name of fighting terrorism we made 
Americans less rather than more secure, both today and in the future.
  Tonight I want to address three areas: First, the Bush 
administration's approach to Iraq; second, the implications for 
America's national security of that approach; and third, where do we go 
from here. So first, the Bush administration's approach to Iraq.
  Following the President's 2002 Axis of Evil speech, the 
administration's goal of regime change in Iraq began to take shape 
quickly. As columnist William Safire observed, regime change is a 
diplomatic euphemism for overthrow of government or the toppling of 
Hussein.
  On February 5, 2002, testifying before the Senate Committee on 
Foreign Relations, Secretary of State Colin Powell stated, ``We still 
believe strongly in regime change in Iraq, and we are looking at a 
variety of options that would bring that about.''
  By March of that year the debate in Washington over the pros and cons 
of military action against Iraq was fully engaged in the newspapers, 
the talk shows and the backrooms. Kenneth Adelman, President Reagan's 
arms control czar and a close ally of the hawks in the administration, 
wrote in the Washington Post that military action to remove Saddam 
Hussein and bring democracy to Iraq would be ``a cake walk.'' Others, 
including former National Security Advisers to the President's father, 
Brent Scowcroft and James Baker, III, argued openly at that time 
against unilateral U.S. action to deal with Saddam.

  Even the superhawks within the administration recognized that 
providing a legal rationale for regime change outside the context of 
the United Nations could prove tricky. While we may have the power, the 
power to go around knocking off nasty dictators, nothing under 
international law gives one country the right to invade another simply 
to change the regime. So what to do?

[[Page H1736]]

  The Bush administration needed an argument, an argument that would 
provide the legal underpinning for unilateral American military action 
against Iraq or other nations that we determine to be a similar threat, 
and the answer devised by the administration was laid out in September 
2002 in the national security strategy document, the so-called Doctrine 
of Preventive War. That theory is simple. It is also tempting. It goes 
like this: If we believe that a country will use weapons of mass 
destruction or arm terrorists with weapons of mass destruction against 
us, then we would ``not hesitate to act alone if necessary to exercise 
our right of self-defense by acting preemptively.''
  In other words, the United States has the right to strike militarily, 
even if we have no evidence that such activities are occurring. We do 
not have to know that an attack is imminent, we can act on our belief 
that such action may occur at some point. It may sound good, but it 
does not take much to see that this doctrine is a recipe for 
international chaos.
  Mr. Speaker, just imagine if India and Pakistan adopted this 
approach, South Asia would be decimated. The Preventive War Doctrine 
violates every principle of international law that the United States 
has fought to uphold.
  The Bush administration was in fact asserting that the United States 
would be exempt from the very rules we expect all other nations in the 
international community to obey, because under international law we, 
and any other country, already have the right to take military action 
to defend ourselves against an imminent attack upon ourselves or our 
citizens. If we know another country is about to launch missiles 
against us, we do not have to wait for the missiles to land, we can act 
preemptively. If we know a foreign government is arming terrorists with 
weapons of any kind, including weapons of mass destruction, we do not 
have to wait in order to strike. We can take preemptive action under 
Article 51 of the U.N. Charter in the face of that kind of imminent 
threat.
  But Iraq does not fit into that framework. The administration has 
never claimed that Iraq was behind the September 11 attacks. It is not 
an imminent threat. It is not poised to attack us. We have no evidence 
that it has transferred or is going to transfer weapons of mass 
destruction to any terrorist group. It has never possessed missiles 
capable of delivering weapons onto U.S. soils, and it is currently in 
the process under the U.N. regime of destroying its missiles with a 
range of over 93 miles. Not even this administration has claimed that 
an Iraqi attack is imminent.
  Now as the administration rolled out its new theory of preventive 
war, and molded its approach to Iraq it did not want to go to the 
United Nations originally, and it also wanted to cut Congress out of 
the process in the early days. Administration lawyers claimed that the 
January 12, 1991 Congressional resolution authorizing the first 
President Bush to use force in the Persian Gulf War gave President 
Bush, the son, the right to send American troops into Iraq without 
further Congressional action.
  The American people back then sensed that things were not going the 
right way. Polls showed that Americans might support military action 
against Iraq, but were not comfortable with America going it alone. And 
while the administration never conceded the legal point about having to 
go to Congress, it recognized the practical and political importance of 
requesting Congressional support, and it got it.
  The Congressional resolution was, in my view, much too broad. It was 
a blank check. It gave the President the authority to take whatever 
military action he deemed appropriate without returning here to 
Congress for consent. Nevertheless, the Congressional debate and the 
resolution that was passed did reinforce the growing consensus that the 
President should work with our allies and the United Nations.
  In November of last year, the administration itself, divided and 
under pressure from the American people, from Congress and British 
Prime Minister Tony Blair, took the very important decision to seek a 
new United Nations resolution on Iraq and put U.S. policy into the 
United Nations framework.

  It was a great triumph for foreign policy of this country that on 
November 8, 2002, the United States got a unanimous Security Council 
vote for Resolution 1441, calling for resumption of inspections and 
enforcement of the U.N. resolutions on disarmament in Iraq. But what 
were the implications for us of going to the Security Council?
  The decision to pursue action through the United Nations may have 
solved one problem, but it created another for the Bush administration. 
The administration's goal of regime change; in other words, getting rid 
of Saddam Hussein, did not fit with the more limited objective of 
enforcing Iraqi compliance with U.N. resolutions requiring Iraqi 
disarmament.
  Administration hardliners who opposed going to the U.N. in the first 
place understood that these different goals could lead to very 
different approaches. They did not want to get mired in the U.N. 
process, and understood that their goal of forcibly removing Saddam 
Hussein from power was not necessarily consistent with the goal of 
enforcing U.N. resolutions. It was going to be like trying to fit the 
square peg into the round hole. And indeed, taking the case to the 
United Nations Security Council led to the clash of goals that is 
playing out today in the United Nations as we speak.
  The U.N. strategy, going to the U.N., required the administration to 
shift its rhetoric and public justification of U.S. policy toward Iraq 
from regime change to the more limited objective, enforcing Iraqi 
compliance with U.N. resolutions. But short of a coup, or Saddam 
Hussein leaving Iraq, regime change obviously requires military action, 
but enforcing the U.N. resolutions does not necessarily require 
toppling Saddam Hussein. And while military action may ultimately be 
required to enforce U.N. resolutions, the two goals, regime change and 
compliance with U.N. resolutions, dictate very different approaches and 
very different timetables.

                              {time}  2215

  In the U.N. context, the context we took ourselves in November of 
last year, regime change is the last-ditch option. It only becomes a 
choice after it is determined that disarmament has failed. How and when 
you reach that point and what efforts must be taken before you get to 
that point is not clearly spelled out in the resolution. In this 
process that we set up, the findings and judgment of the international 
inspectors headed by Hans Blix and the head of the International Atomic 
Energy Agency, Mohammed ElBaradei, hold enormous weight. And Iraq 
through its actions or inactions can influence the process and its 
outcome. The cost of going to the Security Council was clearly going to 
be over control of the timetable as we move forward.
  But while the administration took the decision to go to the United 
Nations, it did not slow or adjust its military timetable. The 
deployment of U.S. forces went forward at an accelerated pace. The 
deadline for full deployment was mid-February or early March. We now 
have over 250,000 troops in the Gulf; and according to news reports, 
they are ready to attack whenever a decision is made. But the only 
deadline spelled out in Security Council Resolution 1441, passed 
unanimously by the Council on November 8, was that inspectors were to 
report to the Council on progress of disarmament, quote, ``60 days 
after inspections resume,'' which turned out to be January 27, 2003. 
Resolution 1441 did not provide any guidance as to what would happen if 
Saddam Hussein was found to be at least in partial compliance with the 
inspections by this deadline, or if there was not a decision in the 
council to take military action by then. It did not foresee the 
situation we are in today, a U.N. process focused on the goal of 
disarmament with one timetable and the U.S. goal of regime change with 
its own military timetable.
  Let me now talk about some of the other arguments that the 
administration has advanced as it faced increasing criticism for its 
approach, because there have been a number of additional arguments that 
have been made beyond the original argument that Iraq's quest for 
weapons of mass destruction and the possibility that it will give them 
to terrorists pose an unacceptable risk. The additional arguments 
rolled out by the administration include, number one, an alleged link 
between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda, a link they have

[[Page H1737]]

failed to prove; two, the brutal nature of Saddam's regime and the need 
to liberate the Iraqi people; and, three, most recently, in the 
President's February 26 speech before the American Enterprise 
Institute, the argument that the overthrow of Hussein would be a 
catalyst for the spread of democracy throughout the Middle East and 
help bring about a final settlement to the Israeli-Palestinian 
conflict, the Bush administration's new domino theory.
  I want to discuss just two of these here: first, the argument that 
regime change is necessary because Saddam Hussein is evil; and, second, 
the claim that military action will prompt a democratic domino effect 
throughout the region.
  First, the argument that military action is justified because Saddam 
Hussein is, quote, ``an evil ruler.'' The hypocrisy of using this 
argument to justify regime change is difficult to ignore. Let us not 
forget that during the Iran-Iraq war the United States sided with 
Saddam Hussein. One of the central architects of current Bush 
administration policy, now-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, played 
a key role in the Reagan administration's decision to embrace Saddam 
Hussein in the early 1980s.
  Declassified U.S. Government documents show that when Rumsfeld 
visited Baghdad in December 1983 as a special Presidential envoy to 
pave the way for the normalization of U.S.-Iraq relations, Iraq was 
using chemical weapons on a daily basis in defiance of international 
conventions. Five years later, in 1988, at the end of the Iran-Iraq 
war, I traveled to the Iraq-Turkish border as a staffer on the U.S. 
Senate Foreign Relations Committee with my colleague Peter Galbraith. 
At that time, thousands of Kurds were fleeing across the border to seek 
refuge in Turkey. We interviewed hundreds of those refugees and 
documented Iraq's use of chemical weapons against the Kurdish people. 
Our report formed the basis for legislation to impose economic 
sanctions against Iraq for its use of chemical weapons against the 
Kurds. The bill passed the United States Senate; but the Reagan 
administration, which included many of the key players in today's 
debate, many people who are now in the Bush administration, opposed and 
helped stop that sanctions legislation when it came here to the House 
of Representatives. I challenge anyone to explain to me how you can 
oppose economic sanctions in 1988 in response to Iraq's use of chemical 
weapons against civilians and then today turn around and say that those 
same actions justify U.S. military force in 2003.
  Moreover, if Saddam Hussein's use of chemical weapons against his own 
people was the reason for military action, we should have finished the 
job during the Persian Gulf War in 1991. Iraq has not used chemical 
weapons since 1988, since the time my colleague Peter Galbraith and I 
went to the Iraq-Turkish border at the end of the Iran-Iraq war. But 3 
years later in 1991, not only did we not remove Hussein in Baghdad but 
at the end of the war we looked the other way, the United States looked 
the other way for many days, while Saddam Hussein turned his guns on 
the Shias in the south and the Kurds in the north. This history, I 
think, exposes the hypocrisy of the position the government has taken 
today and the willingness of some people in the administration to say 
anything to further their ends. The liberation of the Iraqi people is 
certainly a desirable goal, but it is also an argument that could be 
applied to many other countries with brutal regimes around the world. 
It is not by itself sufficient justification for U.S. military action.

  Now, more recently, the administration has advanced the argument that 
the removal of Saddam Hussein will not only liberate the Iraqi people 
but will result in the spread of democracy throughout the Middle East. 
Promoting democracy in the Middle East is a very attractive goal, but 
one this administration has neglected until now. We have made only 
feeble efforts to push even generally supportive governments in Saudi 
Arabia and Egypt to move toward more openness and more democracy. And 
after calling for greater democratization of the Palestinian Authority 
many months ago, the administration has done nothing to help bring that 
vision closer to reality. The belief that democracy is going to somehow 
blossom in the Middle East as a result of U.S. military occupation of 
Iraq is a dangerous hallucination. Since when do we think we can 
implant democratic institutions throughout a region with no experience 
in democracy through some kind of big bang theory? True democratic 
change must come from within the region. It cannot be imposed from 
without. We have not begun to succeed at building democracy in 
Afghanistan. On what basis do we think we can do much better in Iraq, 
let alone the entire Middle East? We need only look at the Balkans, for 
example, at how difficult the task will be.
  Four years after military intervention, NATO has 35,000 troops 
stationed in Kosovo, a region of less than 2 million people, and their 
departure date is not yet on the horizon. Most experts believe that the 
withdrawal of those troops and others in Bosnia would result in a 
return to violence and hostilities. Iraq is a country of 23 million 
people. Like Yugoslavia, it is an artificial construct, in this case 
strung together by the British colonial powers and made up of three 
major groups, 60 percent Shia, 30 percent Sunni, 10 percent Kurds. The 
President has presented this utopian vision of democracy breaking out 
in the Middle East after we invade Iraq. It is just as easy to imagine 
a scenario where difficulties in Iraq and the American action there 
fuel resentment toward occupying American troops and inflame the region 
against us, strengthening the hands of radical Islamic fundamentalists 
and making it more difficult to promote democracy and other U.S. goals 
in the region.
  I recently came across an analysis of the imposing postwar task that 
we would face in Iraq, and I would like to share it with you. This is a 
quotation:
  ``It is not clear what kind of government you would put in. Is it 
going to be a Shia regime, a Sunni regime, or a Kurdish regime? Or is 
it one that tilts toward the Ba'athists, or one that tilts toward the 
Islamic fundamentalists? How much credibility is that government going 
to have if it is set up by the U.S. military? How long does the U.S. 
military have to stay to protect the people that sign on for that 
government? And what happens to it when we leave?''
  These are the comments of none other than then-Secretary of Defense 
Dick Cheney, speaking in April 1991 in support of former President 
Bush's decision to turn back on the road to Baghdad after we took 
Saddam Hussein's forces out of Kuwait. In fact, I agree with the 1991 
Dick Cheney. It will be a difficult, a costly and risky task to 
undertake the reconstruction of a postwar Iraq. It will take a long 
time, much longer than the 2 years the administration has suggested. It 
will take a sizable U.S. troop presence. And the U.S. Army's top 
uniformed officer has estimated that it would take hundreds of 
thousands of troops to feed the hungry and to keep the peace. Military 
action will also require enormous resources. Unofficial Pentagon 
estimates put the cost of the war alone at between $65 and $90 billion. 
The costs of reconstruction will be billions more.
  So what are the implications? What are the implications of this 
policy for our security? I want to offer three observations: first, 
that the administration's approach to Iraq and the arrogance with which 
it has pursued its goals has badly damaged our ability to get the 
cooperation we need from others to protect our security interests and 
wage our long-term fight against terrorism. First, the administration's 
policies have triggered a rapid rise in anti-American sentiment around 
the world. There are those whose response to this sentiment is, hey, 
who cares? Their attitude: we're the big guys on the block, so who 
cares what they think? That swagger may make us feel good, but it is 
foolish. I care what the rest of the world thinks. We all should. We 
should care for the simple reason that what others think has an impact 
on our security. If our actions loosen our ties to our friends and 
allies, it undermines our ability to work together to combat terrorism. 
If our actions generate hatred and fuel the ranks of al Qaeda, it will 
increase the risk of attack upon us. If our actions undermine public 
support for friendly foreign governments, we may lose much more in the 
long run than we gain today. We may choose not to change our policies 
based on what others think, but it is

[[Page H1738]]

foolish not to try to understand the views of others when our own 
security is at risk.

  Having the support of our friends and allies in the international 
community is important to the achievement of most of our foreign policy 
objectives. With respect to Iraq, cooperation would both reduce the 
cost of war and increase the prospects of winning the peace. In the 
1991 Persian Gulf War, former President Bush and then-Secretary of 
State James Baker received U.N. Security Council backing for the use of 
force to expel Saddam Hussein from Kuwait. They assembled an impressive 
coalition of forces and succeeded in sharing the burden of the war. The 
military forces of 18 other countries participated in the Persian Gulf 
War, and more than 85 percent of the costs of that war were borne by 
others. In the current conflict, we face the opposite problem. Instead 
of having others help bear the burden, we are having to pay others to 
participate. Hence, some have dubbed the coalition that the 
administration has assembled not the coalition of the willing, but the 
coalition of the bought.
  Having international support in Iraq would also greatly increase the 
prospects of winning the peace. In addition to providing financial and 
peacekeeping support, truly multilateral action in Iraq would help 
defuse any anger that otherwise would be directed solely against the 
United States. It would also be very helpful to have U.N. participation 
in the immediate postwar governing structure in Iraq to show that this 
is not a war of the United States against the Islamic and Arab worlds, 
but the world against Saddam Hussein.
  Secondly, the Bush approach to Iraq has badly soured our relations 
with our NATO allies. As I mentioned earlier, the first and only time 
in the history of NATO that we invoked article 5 of the Washington 
treaty declaring an attack on one member to be an attack on all was 
after September 11. This dramatic action was followed by unprecedented 
cooperation in various aspects of the war on terrorism and the U.S.-led 
action in Afghanistan. In January, 2002, President Bush met in the Rose 
Garden with German Chancellor Schroeder and warmly praised Germany's 
role in the fight against terrorism, in particular for hosting the Bonn 
conference for multilateral assistance for the reconstruction of 
Afghanistan and the German role in training the Afghan police force. 
This sentiment has now given way to Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld's 
Euro-bashing, including his incendiary comments comparing Germany to 
Libya and Cuba. The division in NATO is greater today than at any other 
time in its history. Never before have several NATO allies actively 
worked to defeat a U.S. proposal in the Security Council.
  What caused this dramatic turnabout? The administration expected our 
allies to fall in lockstep behind its assessment of the Iraqi threat, 
behind its assessment of the extent to which Iraq has complied with the 
U.N. resolution and, most importantly, the administration's goal of 
regime change and its timetable for military action.

                              {time}  2230

  This approach probably reminded many of the way the Soviet Union used 
to dictate to the Warsaw Pact, rather than the traditional dialogue 
among NATO allies.
  For many, the administration's ``my way or the highway'' approach to 
Iraq rekindled their resentment of the unilateralist approach to 
foreign policy issues that this administration took during its first 9 
months in office, before September 11.
  During that period, the administration thumbed its notices at the 
Kyoto Treaty on global climate change, walked away from the Anti-
Ballistic Missile Treaty and an agreement to strengthen the Biological 
Weapons Convention, and demonstrated its contempt for the Comprehensive 
Test Ban Treaty and the International Criminal Court.
  While the administration could have offered amendments to address 
legitimate concerns with some of these agreements, it chose instead to 
abandon them altogether, totally dismissing the views of our allies and 
other nations.
  Much of this unilateral action was forgotten immediately after 
September 11, but the administration's approach to Iraq has reopened 
old wounds. Unless this split in the alliance is healed, damage to our 
interests could be great. Our allies have been extremely helpful in 
tracking down al Qaeda cells around the world. They have allowed U.S. 
troops to traverse their air space or use their territory for numerous 
operations outside of Europe, including the 1991 Persian Gulf War.
  NATO currently has 50,000 peacekeepers in the former Yugoslavia, and 
14 NATO allies have forces on the ground in Afghanistan. It is very 
difficult to imagine a successful U.S.-led operation in Iraq without 
the support both during the war and during the reconstruction period 
without the support of many of our NATO allies.
  Third, the administration's Iraq policy has undermined the United 
Nations. After the September 11 attacks, the United Nations Security 
Council unanimously adopted an American sponsored resolution to oblige 
all 189 member states to crack down on terrorism. Our ambassador to the 
United Nations, John Negroponte, called it ``an unprecedented 
resolution on terrorism in the work of the United Nations.''
  Today, the administration argues that the United Nations will become 
irrelevant if it does not immediately adopt a second resolution 
supporting military force in Iraq. But it is disingenuous to claim that 
we are concerned with the credibility of the United Nations and, at the 
same time, state that we will refuse to be bound by the Security 
Council unless it goes our way. Essentially our position is, the UN is 
relevant and credible only as long as it votes with us.
  This kind of behavior undermines the legitimacy of the Security 
Council and the UN process. How can we credibly seek UN assistance and 
cooperation in the post-war building of Iraq, as we are, if we are 
unwilling to show respect for the UN process?
  We cannot afford to forget the wide array of important issues that 
the United Nations deals with each day, from AIDS in Africa, 
peacekeeping in the Balkans, Cyprus, the Middle East and elsewhere. It 
is very much in our interest to have a viable and strong United 
Nations, and our actions should not undermine this goal.
  Second, the administration's approach is likely to increase the risk 
of terrorist attack against the United States and threatens to plant 
the seeds for more deep-seated resentment in the Muslim world.
  Last October, the CIA testified openly that Iraq for now, ``appears 
to be drawing a line short of conducting terrorist attacks.'' In the 
United States. But, ``should Saddam conclude that a U.S.-led attack 
could no longer be deterred, he probably would be much less constrained 
in adopting terrorist actions.''
  In testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee on February 6, 
2003, CIA director George Tenet stated it this way: ``The situation in 
the Middle East continues to fuel terrorism and anti-U.S. sentiment 
worldwide.''
  In the short-term, I think it is clear that the threat to Americans 
will grow. The real question is whether it will lead to a higher risk 
of terrorist attack in the long term.
  Moderates in the region in the Middle East fear that a U.S. invasion 
will galvanize radical and ultra-conservative forces and lend them new 
credibility and legitimacy, swelling their ranks and increasing violent 
attacks. We should not forget that bin Laden has pointed to the U.S. 
presence in Saudi Arabia, our military presence there, the infidels in 
the Islamic sites of Mecca and Medina, as the catalyst for his deep-
seated resentment of our Nation. One can only imagine that a U.S. 
military occupation of Baghdad, U.S. alone, could be a recruiting 
bonanza for al Qaeda and other terrorist groups.
  Others argue that the war on Iraq will lead to regime change in the 
Middle East, but not the kind the administration envisions. Instead, 
the first regimes to go could be in Jordan and Pakistan, where pro-
western governments have a fragile hold on angry populations. If 
Pakistan topples, many warn, al Qaeda could gain access to the nuclear 
weapons that Pakistan has.

  The administration's single-minded focus on Iraq has also pushed out 
the consideration of other issues and badly

[[Page H1739]]

skewed our national security priorities. Osama bin Laden is still at 
large. Despite the recent arrests in Pakistan, other key al Qaeda 
operatives are at large. Dramatic attacks, like the one in Bali, 
Indonesia, earlier this year, demonstrate that the international 
terrorist network is alive and well.
  By elevating the threat of Iraq to the most dangerous threat to 
American security today, the Bush administration has helped create the 
impression that Iraq possesses the ability somehow of ``blowing the 
United States off the face of the Earth.'' In fact, while Iraq 
certainly presents a threat to its neighbors, and, in a worst case 
scenario, could act to facilitate a terrible terrorist attack on this 
country, it does not possess nuclear weapons, which are the most 
dangerous weapons of mass destruction, and, unlike North Korea or Iran, 
is subject to an international inspections regime ongoing which can 
prevent it from making progress toward that goal.
  In fact, it is instructive to remember that of the three countries 
identified as the ``axis of evil'' in the President's 2002 State of the 
Union address, Iraq is the country farthest away from acquiring such 
weapons.
  So, far from a simple ``us versus them'' world that the Bush 
administration has painted, America faces a national security challenge 
of enormous complexity. We must simultaneously cope with several 
separate and potentially grave threats, from Iraq to North Korea and 
the continuing threat of international terrorist networks. Without 
progress on nuclear nonproliferation, this list could grow quickly.
  At the same time, we remain committed to an ongoing military presence 
in the states of the former Yugoslovia and to the elusive process of a 
negotiated settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Lack of progress in 
both these areas could set back American security interests and lead to 
an escalation in violence and terrorism. In South Asia, two nuclear 
countries are poised army-to-army along a fragile border. And the list 
goes on. Eliminating Saddam Hussein will not address these very real 
problems.
  So, finally, where do we go from here? We find ourselves at a 
crossroads. There is little daylight left. It is not a question of 
whether or not we can defeat Saddam Hussein militarily. We can. Rather, 
it is a question of the long-term risks to our security by proceeding 
in a manner that alienates our friends, creates opportunities for our 
foes, weakens the rule of law and undermines America's moral authority.
  If the threat can be met in other ways, then why would we not pursue 
those options to their fullest? Some have argued that it is too late, 
that the cost of the huge U.S. deployments overseas demand that these 
troops not be brought home without seeing military action.
  I disagree. The stakes are too high for that kind of thinking. The 
costs, both human and financial, of deploying U.S. troops in the 
region, are insignificant compared to the costs of full U.S. military 
intervention and reconstruction of post-war Iraq.
  We should not use our troop deployments as an excuse to act under an 
artificial timetable. Those deployments have played a role in achieving 
the more muscular inspections that we have seen in recent months.
  We can always choose to take military action, but we cannot put the 
genie back in the bottle once we go down that road. Last Friday, Mr. 
ElBaradei, the Director of the IAEA, reported that there was no 
evidence of resumed nuclear activities in Iraq. He showed that the 
United States had unwittingly supplied the UN with forged documents to 
try and support our claim that Iraq had revived its nuclear weapons 
program.
  The chief UN weapons inspector, Dr. Blix, who Secretary of State 
Powell has praised in the past as man of integrity and professionalism, 
Blix reported that Iraq had made progress toward disarmament and stated 
that the inspection process could be completed in a matter of months.
  The use of force is a powerful and very important tool of foreign 
policy, but one that should generally be used as a last resort, when 
all other options fail. The heightened pressure the Bush administration 
has brought to bear on Iraq has focused world attention on Baghdad and 
reaped modest, but important, results with respect to Iraqi 
disarmament. I think most of the world believes that enforced UN 
inspections still have the potential to bring us to our primary goal, 
the disarmament of Iraq.
  I believe the United States should give this process more time, both 
to further the goal of disarmament and to build broader international 
support for military action, should that become necessary to enforce 
the resolutions.

  Mr. Speaker, in conclusion, I believe that the overall approach this 
administration has taken is taking us in a dangerous direction. I 
believe our moral standing, our greatest source of strength, has been 
diminished. We cannot build a more democratic and a more open world on 
the administration's policies of preventative war, disdain for 
international law and neglect of international cooperation.
  We have our work cut out for us. We must fight for policies that help 
rebuild America's moral authority in world affairs. We must articulate 
a credible alternative foreign policy doctrine that is not based on 
American exclusionism, but on America's stake as a leading partner in a 
diverse international community.
  We are a strong and rich country. We experienced a terrible tragedy 
on September 11, 2001, but we do not have to act out of fear. Our 
strongest weapon against hatred and extremism are our high ideals, our 
democratic example founded on the rule of law. We cannot, we must not, 
allow this administration in the name of those ideals to pursue 
policies that are not worthy of our Nation's great history.
  I yield the remainder of my time to the gentleman from North 
Carolina.

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