[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 41 (Thursday, March 13, 2003)]
[Senate]
[Page S3717]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               AMERICA'S COMMITMENT TO INTERNATIONAL LAW

  Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, when future generations reflect on the 
fallout from the terrorist attack of 9/11/2001, I fear they will see 
our own commitment to international law as a casualty of that event. I 
do.
  For some time now, there has been a contest within the U.S. foreign 
policy establishment between those who believe our greater security 
lies with the strengthening of international institutions and 
agreements, on the one hand, and, on the other, those who believe our 
security is enhanced if we demonstrate the will and capacity to 
prevail; that is, to dominate the new world and shape it to our liking.
  The election of President Bush and the attack of 9/11 have moved U.S. 
policy to endorse this second vision--that of U.S. dominance of a world 
that meets our standards of acceptable conduct.
  The result of this shift in U.S. foreign policy is now evident in the 
statements and actions of the President regarding Iraq. Unless I 
misread those statements by the President and his foreign policy team, 
sometime within the next few days, the United States, and possibly 
British, troops will begin an invasion of Iraq. The mission, according 
to the President, will be to disarm Saddam Hussein, to capture and 
destroy his weapons of mass destruction, to liberate the people of Iraq 
from his despotic rule, to install a new and democratic government, and 
to hold up Iraq as a model for freedom and democracy that can be 
emulated by other Middle Eastern countries.
  These are noble objectives. My concern is not with the objectives but 
with the apparent decision the President has made to proceed with an 
invasion now while many Americans and many of our traditional allies 
believe that alternatives to war still exist.
  In his State of the Union Address, the President spoke about a 
circumstance where ``war is forced upon us.'' After the President 
spoke, I came to the Senate floor to make what I considered an obvious 
point; that is, that war had not been forced upon us. It is still my 
view today that war with Iraq has not been forced upon us. Our allies 
who are urging that the U.N. weapons inspectors be given more time to 
do their work agree with that view.
  In the report to the Security Council last Friday, Hans Blix and 
Mohamed ElBaradai, the heads of the U.N. inspection teams, reported 
progress toward the goal of ensuring that Iraq has been disarmed. They 
pointed out that more cooperation by Iraq is needed, but they 
acknowledged that cooperation has increased.
  President Bush and Secretary of State Powell have correctly pointed 
out that Iraq's increased level of cooperation does not constitute full 
compliance with Security Council Resolution 1441, in that Iraq has not 
fully, completely, and immediately disarmed.
  The question is whether this failure to fully comply with the U.N. 
resolution justifies an armed invasion of Iraq at this time. Many 
Security Council members believe it does not, and, in my view, it does 
not.
  Our Government's position appears to be that we will enforce the U.N. 
Security Council resolution even though the Security Council itself 
does not support that action at this time. In other words, we will act 
in coordination with the views of the world community of nations as 
long as those views agree with our own. When those views differ from 
our own, we will use our great military capability to impose our will 
by force.
  I, for one, can support a policy of imposing our will by force, 
notwithstanding the views of our allies, if there is an imminent threat 
to our own security and if all options, other than war, have been 
exhausted. But neither of those circumstances prevails today.
  A decision to wage war at this time, absent the support of our 
traditional allies, contradicts the foreign policy on which this Nation 
has been grounded for many decades. It undermines the international 
institution that previous U.S. administrations worked to establish as 
an instrument for world peace. It clearly signals that even absent an 
imminent threat to our security, we consider ourselves the ultimate 
arbiter of acceptable behavior by other governments and that we will 
act to ``change regimes'' when we determine the actions of other 
governments to be unacceptable.
  Madam President, this is an unwise and dangerous precedent for us to 
establish. Stripped of its niceties, it is essentially a foreign policy 
premised on the belief that ``might makes right.'' At this point in 
world history, we have the might and, therefore, accommodating the 
views of others seems a low priority. But the day will surely come when 
others also have the might, and then we may wish we had shown restraint 
so that we can argue that others should as well.
  There is a famous scene from ``A Man For All Seasons,'' the 
magnificent play Robert Bolt wrote, about the conflict between Sir 
Thomas More, a man of conscience and the law, and his sovereign, Henry 
VIII.
  More and Roper, his son-in-law, are arguing about the law at this 
point in the play. Their conversation is instructive. Roper, the son-
in-law, exclaims: ``So now you'd give the Devil benefit of law!'' More 
replies: ``Yes. What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to 
get after the Devil?'' Roper says: ``I'd cut down every law in England 
to do that,'' to which More responds: ``. . . And when the last law was 
down, and the Devil turned round on you--where would you hide, Roper, 
the laws all being flat? This country's planted thick with laws from 
coast to coast . . . and if you cut them down--and you're just the man 
to do it--d'you really think you could stand upright in the winds that 
would blow then?'' ``Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own 
safety's sake.''
  I submit that if the United States determines to circumvent the U.N. 
in this case, the Devil may well turn round on us, and we could reap 
the whirlwind for years to come.
  I yield the floor.

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