[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 177 (Monday, December 15, 2003)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E2552-E2553]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     IRAQ: A WAR OF CHOICE, (CONT.)

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. BARNEY FRANK

                            of massachusetts

                    in the house of representatives

                       Monday, December 15, 2003

  Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, on December 8, I inserted 
into these pages an extraordinarily important article by Richard Haass, 
formerly the Director of Policy Planning at the State Department in the 
Bush administration. This article by Mr. Haass, which appeared in the 
November 23 Washington Post, has received far too little attention. In 
it, this very high ranking State Department official under the 
presidency of George Bush acknowledged what many of us have been 
arguing in the face of the administration's efforts to prove the 
contrary; namely, that the war in Iraq was motivated not by a fear of 
weapons of mass destruction or of the need to combat terrorism, but 
rather as a conscious policy choice in service of the administration's 
view of the world. As Mr. Haass himself argued in the central point of 
his essay, Iraq was a war of choice and not of necessity. Obviously if 
it had been occasioned by the likelihood of Saddam Hussein using 
weapons of mass destruction or of his furthering the efforts of al 
Qaeda, it would have fallen into the war of necessity category.
  While I was disappointed that more attention had not been paid to 
this, I was not surprised to see in the December 8 Washington Post a 
very thoughtful article by Lawrence J. Korb underlining exactly how 
significant Mr. Haass's article was. Lawrence J. Korb who served as an 
Assistant Secretary of Defense under President Reagan has been for 
years one of the most thoughtful critics of national security excesses, 
and a strong articulator of rational foreign policy.
  As Mr. Korb explicitly notes, what Richard Haass says in explaining 
the war in Iraq is directly contrary to the rationale given by the 
President, the Secretary of Defense and other high administration 
officials. It is, as Mr. Korb notes, unfortunate that Mr. Haass ``was 
unwilling to go public with his views as did General Eric Shineski, 
while he could have made a difference.'' But while I join Mr. Korb in 
that regret, I do want to express admiration for Mr. Haass for speaking 
out now. Obviously he is aware of how much what he writes contradicts 
the official rationale for this war given by the Bush administration, 
and in this case the adage better late than never is relevant.
  Because Lawrence J. Korb so clearly emphasizes the importance of 
Richard Haass's original article and because this is a significant 
debate that is getting too little attention from the American public, I 
ask that Lawrence J. Korb's article be printed here.

[[Page E2553]]

                    A War of Choice or of Necessity?

                         (By Lawrence J. Korb)

       Eight months after the Bush administration got us involved 
     in a bloody war in Iraq, we are now told by one of Secretary 
     of State Colin L. Powell's closest advisers that Iraq was a 
     war of choice after all. According to Richard Haass, director 
     of policy planning at the State Department until June 2003 
     and still the Bush administration's special envoy to Northern 
     Ireland, the administration ``did not have to go to war 
     against Iraq, certainly not when we did. There were other 
     options'' [op-ed, Nov. 23]. Really?
       This is not what the administration told us before the war 
     and continues to tell us to this day. On March 20, as he was 
     sending troops into Iraq because the regime of Saddam Hussein 
     allegedly possessed weapons of mass destruction and had ties 
     to al Qaeda, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld told 
     them, ``We are at the point at which the risk of not acting 
     is too great to wait longer. As you prepare, know that this 
     war is necessary . . .'' Some three weeks into the war, 
     Powell, who had made the case for war to the United Nations, 
     stated: ``We do not seek war. We do not look for war. We 
     don't want wars. But we will not be afraid to fight when 
     these wars are necessary to protect the American people, to 
     protect our interests, to protect friends.''
       Even after it had become abundantly clear that the 
     arguments the Bush administration advanced for going to war 
     were specious, both Vice President Cheney and Deputy 
     Secretary of Defense Paul D. Wolfowitz explicitly rebutted 
     Haass's position. In an Oct. 10 speech to the Heritage 
     Foundation in which he lashed out at those who said we had a 
     choice about invading Iraq, the vice president said: ``Some 
     claim we should not have acted because the threat from Saddam 
     Hussein was not imminent. Since when have terrorists and 
     tyrants announced their intentions, policy putting us on 
     notice before they strike? On Nov. 4 Wolfowitz stated: ``But 
     one of the things that Sept. 11 changed was that it made it a 
     war of necessity, not a war of choice.''
       The president himself continues to proclaim how necessary 
     the war was. On Nov. 22 he said at a press conference in 
     London, ``Our mission in Iraq is noble and it is necessary.
       On Thanksgiving Day the president told the troops in 
     Baghdad: ``You are defeating the terrorists here in Iraq so 
     we don't have to face them in our own country.''
       Even more surprising is Haass's contention that despite its 
     public pronouncements, the Bush administration knows that, 
     because this is a war of choice, Americans will not support 
     it unless it is relatively short and cheap. This is why the 
     administration has changed its policy and accelerated the 
     timetable to hand over increasing political responsibility to 
     Iraqis, even if it means reducing what it is trying to 
     accomplish.
       Haass weakens his own case by arguing that the first 
     Persian Gulf War was a real war of necessity and Vietnam was 
     only a war of choice. Even those who argued against the 
     recent invasion of Iraq would not contend that it was less 
     necessary than the first Persian Gulf War. As Secretary of 
     State James Baker noted in 1990, that war was really about 
     oil. And Powell, then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 
     as well as such defense hawks as Sen. Sam Nunn (D-Ga.), 
     wanted to give sanctions more time to work before invading 
     Iraq. (If it was so necessary, why did the administration of 
     the elder Bush not invade until it got other nations to fund 
     the war?)
       It is equally absurd to argue that the first Gulf War was 
     more necessary than Vietnam. In the mid-1960s many Americans, 
     including most of us who were in the armed forces, believed 
     that if South Vietnam fell to the Communists all of Southeast 
     Asia would soon follow and the containment policy would be 
     undermined. This is why the American people supported that 
     conflict through the Tet offensive of 1968, even though more 
     than 30,000 Americans had died by then.
       Ironically, while Haass is wrong about Vietnam and the 
     first Gulf War, he is right about Iraq. It is a war of 
     choice--a bad choice as it turns out. Unfortunately, he was 
     unwilling to go public with his views, as did Gen. Eric 
     Shinseki, while he could have made a difference. This article 
     should have been written nine months ago when Congress and 
     the American people had a choice. Now our only real choice is 
     to continue to stay and absorb the casualties and the cost.

                          ____________________