[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 94 (Tuesday, June 24, 2003)]
[House]
[Pages H5718-H5719]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 WAR IN IRAQ: MANUFACTURED CATASTROPHE

  (Mr. KUCINICH asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Speaker, this administration deliberately took this 
Nation into a war against Iraq based on false premises. Iraq had 
nothing to do with 9-11, with al Qaeda's role in 9-11, with the anthrax 
attack on this Nation; did not represent an imminent threat to the 
United States, had no usable weapons of mass destruction. That is why 
the weapons of mass destruction cannot be found.
  This deception made America less secure. It cut the United States off 
from

[[Page H5719]]

the world community. It violated the U.S. Constitution, it violated the 
U.N. charter, it violated the Geneva Convention; and it continues to 
cost, because we are now losing our men and women in combat on a 
regular basis. We continue to lose them. It has cost the lives of 
countless innocent Iraqis. It has cost the taxpayers of this Nation 
over $100 billion, and it has cost tens of billions of dollars in 
damage to Iraq. It has strengthened religious fundamentalists in Iraq 
who now threaten the freedom of women in Iraq's society.
  This manufactured catastrophe called ``foreign policy'' represents 
not only a failure of truth, a great credibility gap, but, more than 
that, America faces a crisis of legitimacy of this administration 
itself, which lied to the American people to get approval for a war.

                          ____________________