[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 41 (Monday, March 29, 2004)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3280-S3283]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              IRAQ DEBATE

  Mr. BENNETT. Mr. President, I have listened to the debate that has 
been swirling around the country with respect to Iraq. The debate comes 
up again with respect to the commission which is currently meeting.
  I cannot respond to all of the specifics that come along. I am 
tempted to, but I will not because I want to spend the time that is 
allotted to me by setting the total record before those who might be 
listening so we can understand that many of the original statements or 
original positions with respect to Iraq that are being repeated over 
and over again are, in fact, false.
  I remember our colleague across the aisle, the late Senator Moynihan 
from New York, one of my dear friends and one of the Senators for whom 
I have the highest regard, quoted something. He probably didn't think 
of it himself, but it was more or less his mantra, as he said to me: 
``Everyone is entitled to his own opinion but not to his own facts.''
  We keep hearing things said over and over again with respect to the 
war in Iraq as if they were fact. It is time to set the overall record 
straight.
  We heard one statement that there was absolutely no connection 
between 9/11 and Iraq. The other one we hear over and over again is the 
reason we went into Iraq is because we thought Saddam Hussein had 
weapons of mass destruction. Some make it a little more stark than 
that.
  There was a group that marched on the Utah State Legislature wearing 
T-shirts that said, ``Bush Lied To Us. There Were No WMDs,'' as if the 
President of the United States George W. Bush himself alone was the 
only authority for the notion that there were weapons of mass 
destruction; and, once again repeating the false position that the only 
reason we went into Iraq is because we believed they had weapons of 
mass destruction.

  To quote another individual not nearly as well known as Pat Moynihan 
but my high school history teacher, she would always say to us, ``You 
cannot cut the seamless web of history.'' I want to take this 
opportunity to lay out the whole seamless web of the history of 
terrorism and do our best to understand it so we can realize the first 
statement that there was no connection between Iraq and 9/11 and the 
second statement that the only reason we went in is because Bush lied 
to us about weapons there, are not true. And I hope we can get the 
dialog back to the facts.
  I am distressed at what has happened to the dialog on this issue. I 
must comment. On television was the former Vice President of the United 
States with his hand with a clenched fist raised, the blood vessels 
standing out on his neck, screaming at the top of his voice, speaking 
of the President, ``He has betrayed this country.''
  To say the President has betrayed his country is to accuse him of 
treason, which is one of the crimes specifically listed in the 
Constitution as an impeachable offense. We have not heard that kind of 
rhetoric from a politician as highly placed as Al Gore since the 1950s. 
And the politician who used to speak like that was a member of this 
Chamber. His name was Joe McCarthy, and the President whom he accused 
of treason was Harry Truman.
  Let us step away from that kind of rhetoric in this debate and review 
the facts.
  I had the opportunity of attending the Kissinger Lecture at the 
Library of Congress which was given by George Shultz, former Secretary 
of State. It was one of the most cogent and lucid statements of where 
we are with respect to the war on terror I have ever heard. An update 
of that appeared in today's Wall Street Journal. I would like to quote 
from that those points which address the issues I have talked about, 
and ask unanimous consent that the entire piece be printed in the 
Record following my remarks.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  (See exhibit 1).
  Mr. BENNETT. Mr. President, former Secretary of State George Shultz 
begins with this comment:

       We have struggled with terrorism for a long time. In the 
     Reagan administration, I was a hawk on the subject. I said 
     terrorism is a big problem, a different problem and we have 
     to take forceful action against it. Fortunately, Ronald 
     Reagan agreed with me but not many others did. [Don Rumsfeld 
     was an outspoken exception.]

  Twenty-five years ago, it was on the radar screen of an American 
administration--in this case one headed by Ronald Reagan--that 
terrorism was a problem.
  Secretary Shultz goes on to discuss this and then makes this comment:

       Today, looking back on the past quarter century of 
     terrorism, we can see that it is the method of choice of an 
     extensive, internationally connected ideological movement 
     dedicated to the destruction of our international system of 
     cooperation and progress. We can see that the 1981 
     assassination of President Anwar Sadat, the 1993 bombing of 
     the World Trade Center, the 2001 destruction of the Twin 
     Towers, the bombs on the trains in Madrid, and scores of 
     other terrorist attacks in between and in many countries, 
     were carried out by one part or another of this movement. And 
     the movement is connected to states that develop awesome 
     weaponry, with some of it, or with expertise, for sale.

  Let me emphasize that last sentence again. Speaking of international 
terrorism that was involved in all of these things, going back to the 
assassination of Sadat in 1981, he says:

       And the movement is connected to states that develop 
     awesome weaponry, with some of it, or with expertise, for 
     sale.

  All right. Do we have an example of such a state that has developed 
awesome weaponry that may be for sale? Yes.
  Quoting again from Secretary Shultz, he speaks directly of Saddam 
Hussein and Iraq. He adds to this Kim Jong Il of North Korea, and then 
says:

       They seize control of state power and use that power to 
     enhance their wealth, consolidate their rule and develop 
     their weaponry. As they do this, and as they violate the laws 
     and principles of the international system, they at the same 
     time claim its privileges and immunities, such as the 
     principle of non-intervention into the internal affairs of a 
     legitimate sovereign state. For decades these thugs have 
     gotten away with it. And the leading nations of the world 
     have let them get away with it.

  Yes, we have heard much on this floor about America must not invade 
another sovereign state. That is precisely what Secretary Shultz is 
talking about when he says, these states that develop awesome weaponry 
and cooperate with terrorism for the purpose of

[[Page S3281]]

upsetting the international order, then claim the immunities of the 
international order for themselves--as he says: ``such as the principle 
of non-intervention into the internal affairs of a legitimate sovereign 
state.''
  He goes on to summarize all that happened in Iraq. And again, those 
who will read the entire piece as it appears following my statement can 
get all of those details. But after he recites the details of what 
Saddam Hussein has done, he turns to David Kay, the man who is quoted 
again and again as the authority for the statement on the T-shirt that 
says: ``Bush Lied To Us.''
  Well, let's see what David Kay really said. I said in my previous 
statement David Kay told this Congress, testifying before the Armed 
Services Committee, that Saddam Hussein was, in fact, more dangerous 
than we thought when we started the war. But these are the portions of 
David Kay's position Secretary Shultz chooses to highlight, and I think 
they are the right ones to bring out.
  Quoting again:

       As Dr. David Kay put it in a Feb. 1 interview with Chris 
     Wallace, ``We know there were terrorist groups in state still 
     seeking WMD capability. Iraq, although I found no weapons, 
     had tremendous capabilities in this area. A marketplace 
     phenomena was about to occur, if it did not occur; sellers 
     meeting buyers. And I think that would have been very 
     dangerous if the war had not intervened.''

  Sellers of what? Buyers of what? Who would the sellers be? Who would 
the buyers be? The sellers, obviously, would be the Iraqis. The buyers 
would be the terrorists. And what are we talking about?
  Back to Secretary Shultz:

       When asked by Mr. Wallace what the sellers could have sold 
     if they didn't have actual weapons, Mr. Kay said: ``The 
     knowledge of how to make them, the knowledge of how to make 
     small amounts, which is, after all, mostly what terrorists 
     want. They don't want battlefield amounts of weapons. No, 
     Iraq remained a very dangerous place in terms of WMD 
     capabilities, even though we found no large stockpiles of 
     weapons.''

  Just think about that for a second: the knowledge to make them.
  If I could give a very homely example, last week my wife and I were 
celebrity chefs at the March of Dimes gala, and we won a prize, and 
people all said: Is this an old family recipe? We had to admit, no, we 
called a chef in Salt Lake City at one of the finest restaurants there, 
who happens to work as a judge at these kinds of celebrity cook-ins, 
and he gave us a recipe he thought would win. We have been celebrity 
chefs four times. We have called him all four times. We have won three 
out of four.
  The capacity to tell somebody how to make something will produce that 
something just as much as having that something yourself. This chef did 
not participate, but his recipes participated, and his recipes won. All 
we had to do was be the willing buyers in the case; and he was the 
willing seller. I will add, just for the record, no money changed hands 
with respect to the recipe. But the example is there, and that is what 
David Kay is talking about.
  Going back to Secretary Shultz, he says:

     . . . in the long run, the most important aspect of the Iraq 
     war will be what it means for the integrity of the 
     international system and for the effort to deal effectively 
     with terrorism. The stakes are huge and the terrorists know 
     that as well as we do. That is the reason for their tactic of 
     violence in Iraq. And that is why, for us and for our allies, 
     failure is not an option. The message is that the U.S. and 
     others in the world who recognize the need to sustain our 
     international system will no longer quietly acquiesce in the 
     take-over of states by lawless dictators who then carry on 
     their depredations--including the development of awesome 
     weapons for threats, use, or sale--behind the shield of 
     protection that statehood provides. If you are one of these 
     criminals in charge of a state, you no longer should expect 
     to be allowed to be inside the system at the same time that 
     you are a deadly enemy of it.

  Secretary Shultz concludes his piece with this comment:

       If we put this in terms of World War II, we are now 
     sometime around 1937. In the 1930s, the world failed to do 
     what it needed to do to head off a world war. Appeasement 
     never works. Today we are in action. We must not flinch. With 
     a powerful interplay of strength and diplomacy, we can win 
     this war.

  Put it in context, put it in the historic pattern, and we realize 
this is all connected and that the action with respect to Iraq was a 
very proper, significant, indeed, essential part of the overall war on 
terrorism. If we had not moved ahead, we would have been irresponsible.
  The summary is in the callout that is put in the paper that says:

       The U.S. had no choice: We had to oust Saddam Hussein, or 
     face the gravest threat.

  Mr. President, may I ask how much time I have remaining?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has 4\1/2\ minutes.
  Mr. BENNETT. If I might use that 4\1/2\ minutes, then, to address the 
fundamental question of the future nobody talks about. We are spending 
all of this time rehashing the past. Here is the fundamental question 
of the future: What happened to Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass 
destruction? The assumption raised by the statement that ``Bush lied to 
us about the weapons'' is that the weapons never existed.
  Well, the first person to convince me the weapons existed was 
Madeleine Albright. The first President to tell me the weapons existed 
was William Jefferson Clinton.
  The first group that insisted weapons were there was working for the 
United Nations. This was not a partisan thing put together by George W. 
Bush. The weapons were clearly in Iraq, and the question is not why 
didn't Bush tell us the truth about them; the question is, what 
happened to them? That is the question we need to address. That is the 
question of the future we are ignoring in all of this debate about who 
said what at what point in the past.
  As I see it, there are four possibilities of what happened to the 
weapons Saddam Hussein had. No. 1, we got them all in the bombing in 
1998. We must remember, as we try to truncate the history, the war in 
Iraq began in 1991. The U.N. resolution that called for the war was 
never suspended. It was renewed with acts of war in 1998. A heavy 4-day 
period of solid bombing is an act of war. President Clinton carried 
that out with the approval of this Congress. So the first possibility 
is that bombing destroyed all of the weapons of mass destruction.
  The second possibility, Saddam Hussein himself dismantled his 
stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction in an effort to convince the 
U.N. inspectors they were not there so the inspectors would leave him 
alone and he could go back to building them after the inspectors were 
gone. There is some suggestion that was in fact what happened, that he 
did not intend to disarm, as U.N. Resolution 1441 required he do. All 
he intended to do was deceive, and that is where the weapons went.
  Possibility No. 3, they were trucked over the border. Some of them 
got into Syria or other places and into the hands of others who still 
have them.
  And possibility No. 4, they are still in Iraq and we simply have not 
found them. When people ask me, which of these four possibilities do 
you think is the most likely, I say: All of the above. I believe we 
destroyed a good portion of his weapons in the 1998 bombing. I believe 
he himself dismantled others in a deliberate attempt to deceive the 
U.N. inspectors. I believe some of them did get out of the country and 
are in the hands of other bad actors somewhere. And I believe there are 
probably still some hidden away somewhere in the desert in Iraq.
  Unless the first answer is the only one that is correct and they were 
all destroyed in the bombing, they are still around somewhere. The 
capacity to build them was still around, as David Kay pointed out, 
before we went in and removed that.
  If there are some of them still around, why aren't we looking for 
them? Why aren't we paying attention to where they might be? I believe 
the American military is still on the alert for them. I believe the 
American intelligence community is still looking to where they might 
be. But in the debate we have here on the Senate floor, this question 
is never raised. It is never given any attention. Instead we spend all 
of our time looking backward and trying to assign blame instead of 
looking forward and trying to solve problems.
  I commend Secretary Shultz's presentation to all. It is a clear 
historic perspective over a quarter century from one of our senior 
statesmen that makes it clear the rhetoric surrounding this issue has 
been inappropriate and focused on the wrong thing.
  I yield the floor.

[[Page S3282]]

                               Exhibit 1

          [From the Asian Wall Street Journal, Mar. 29, 2004]

                            An Essential War

                         (By George P. Shultz)

       We have struggled with terrorism for a long time. In the 
     Reagan administration, I was a hawk on the subject. I said 
     terrorism is a big problem, a different problem, and we have 
     to take forceful action against it. Fortunately, Ronald 
     Reagan agreed with me, but not many others did. (Don Rumsfeld 
     was an outspoken exception).
       In those days we focused on how to defend against 
     terrorism. We reinforced our embassies and increased out 
     intelligence effort. We thought we made some progress. We 
     established the legal basis for holding states responsible 
     for using terrorists to attack Americans anywhere. Through 
     intelligence, we did abort many potential terrorist acts. But 
     we didn't really understand what motivated the terrorists or 
     what they were out to do.
       In the 1990s, the problem began to appear even more 
     menacing. Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda were well known, but 
     the nature of the terror threat was not yet comprehended and 
     our efforts to combat it were ineffective. Diplomacy without 
     much force was tried. Terrorism was regarded as a law 
     enforcement problem and terrorists as criminals. Some were 
     arrested and put on trial. Early last year, a judge finally 
     allowed the verdict to stand for one of those convicted in 
     the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Ten years! Terrorism is 
     not a matter that can be left to law enforcement, with its 
     deliberative process, built-in delays, and safeguards that 
     may let the prisoner go free on procedural grounds.
       Today, looking back on the past quarter century of 
     terrorism, we can see that it is the method of choice of an 
     extensive, internationally connected ideological movement 
     dedicated to the destruction of our international system of 
     cooperation and progress. We can see that the 1981 
     assassination of President Anwar Sadat, the 1993 bombing of 
     the World Trade Center, the 2001 destruction of the Twin 
     Towers, the bombs on the trains in Madrid, and scores of 
     other terrorist attacks in between and in many countries, 
     were carried out by one part or another of this movement. And 
     the movement is connected to states that develop awesome 
     weaponry, with some of it, or with expertise, for sale.
       What should we do? First and foremost, shore up the state 
     system.
       The world has worked for three centuries with the sovereign 
     state as the basic operating entity, presumably accountable 
     to its citizens and responsible for their well-being. In this 
     system, states also interact with each other--bilaterlly or 
     multilaterally--to accomplish ends that transcend their 
     borders. They create international organizations to serve 
     their ends, not govern them.
       Increasingly, the state system has been eroding. Terrorists 
     have exploited this weakness by burrowing into the state 
     system in order to attack it. While the state system weakens, 
     no replacement is in sight that can perform the essential 
     functions of establishing an orderly and lawful society, 
     protecting essential freedoms, providing a framework for 
     fruitful economic activity, contributing to effective 
     international cooperation, and providing for the common 
     defense.
       I see our great task as restoring the vitality of the state 
     system within the framework of a world of opportunity, and 
     with aspirations for a world of states that recognize 
     accountability for human freedom and dignity.
       All established states should stands up to their 
     responsibilities in the fight against our common enemy, 
     terror; be a helpful partner in economic and political 
     development; and take care that international organizations 
     work for their member states, not the other way around. When 
     they do, they deserve respect and help to make them work 
     successfully.
       The civilized world has a common stake in defeating the 
     terrorists. We now call this what it is: a War on Terrorism. 
     In war, you have to act on both offense and defense. You have 
     to hit the enemy before the enemy hits you. The diplomacy of 
     incentives, containment, deterrence and prevention are all 
     made more effective by the demonstrated possibility of 
     forceful preemption. Strength and diplomacy go together. They 
     are not alternatives; they are complements. You work 
     diplomacy and strength together on a grand and strategic 
     scale and on an operational and tactical level. But if you 
     deny yourself the option of forceful preemption, you 
     diminish the effectiveness of your diplomatic moves. And, 
     with the consequences of a terrorist attack as hideous as 
     they are--witness what just happened in Madrid--the U.S. 
     must be ready to preempt identified threats. And not at 
     the last moment, when an attack is imminent and more 
     difficult to stop, but before the terrorist gets in 
     position to do irreparable harm.
       Over the last decade we have seen large areas of the world 
     where there is no longer any state authority at all, an ideal 
     environment for terrorists to plan and train. In the early 
     1990s we came to realize the significance of a ``failed 
     state.'' Earlier, people allowed themselves to think that, 
     for example, an African colony could gain its independence, 
     be admitted to the U.N. as a member state, and thereafter 
     remain a sovereign state. Then came Somalia. All government 
     disappeared. No more sovereignty, no more state. The same was 
     true in Afghanistan. And who took over? Islamic extremists. 
     They soon made it clear that they regarded the concept of the 
     state as an abomination. To them, the very idea of ``the 
     state'' was un-Islamic. They talked about reviving 
     traditional forms of pan-Islamic rule with no place for the 
     state. They were fundamentally, and violently, opposed to the 
     way the world works, to the international state system.
       The United States launched a military campaign to eliminate 
     the Taliban and al Qaeda's rule over Afghanistan. Now we and 
     our allies are trying to help Afghanistan become a real state 
     again and a viable member of the international state system. 
     Yet there are many other parts of the world where state 
     authority has collapsed or, within some states, large areas 
     where the state's authority does not run.
       That's one area of danger: places where the state has 
     vanished. A second area of danger is found in places where 
     the state has been taken over by criminals or warlords. 
     Saddam Hussein was one example. Kim Jong Il of North Korea is 
     another.
       They seize control of state power and use that power to 
     enhance their wealth, consolidate their rule and develop 
     their weaponry. As they do this, and as they violate the laws 
     and principles of the international system, they at the same 
     time claim its privileges and immunities, such as the 
     principle of non-intervention into the internal affairs of a 
     legitimate sovereign state. For decades these thugs have 
     gotten away with it. And the leading nations of the world 
     have let them get away with it.
       This is why the case of Saddam Hussein and Iraq is so 
     significant. After Saddam Hussein consolidated power, he 
     started a war against one of his neighbors, Iran, and in the 
     course of that war he committed war crimes including the use 
     of chemical weapons, even against his own people.
       About 10 years later he started another war against another 
     one of his neighbors, Kuwait. In the course of doing so he 
     committed war crimes. He took hostages. He launched missiles 
     against a third and then a fourth country in the region.
       That war was unique in modern times because Saddam totally 
     eradicated another state, and turned it into ``Province 19'' 
     of Iraq. The aggressors in wars might typically seize some 
     territory, or occupy the defeated country, or install a 
     puppet regime; but Saddam sought to wipe out the defeated 
     state, to erase Kuwait from the map of the world.
       That got the world's attention. That's why, at the U.N., 
     the votes were wholly in favor of a U.S.-led military 
     operation--Desert Storm--to throw Saddam out of Kuwait and to 
     restore Kuwait to its place as a legitimate state in the 
     international system. There was virtually universal 
     recognition that those responsible for the international 
     system of states could not let a state simply be rubbed out.
       When Saddam was defeated, in 1991, a cease-fire was put in 
     place. Then the U.N. Security Council decided that, in order 
     to prevent him from continuing to start wars and commit 
     crimes against his own people, he must give up his arsenal of 
     ``weapons of mass destruction.''
       Recall the way it was to work. If Saddam cooperated with 
     U.N. inspectors and produced and facilitated their 
     destruction, then the cease-fire would be transformed into a 
     peace agreement ending the state of war between the 
     international system and Iraq. But if Saddam did not 
     cooperate, and materially breached his obligations regarding 
     his weapons of mass destruction, then the original U.N. 
     Security Council authorization for the use of ``all necessary 
     force'' against Iraq--an authorization that at the end of 
     Desert Storm had been suspended but not cancelled--would be 
     reactivated and Saddam would face another round of the U.S.-
     led military action against him. Saddam agreed to this 
     arrangement.
       In the early 1990s, U.N. inspectors found plenty of 
     materials in the category of weapons of mass destruction and 
     they dismantled a lot of it. They kept on finding such 
     weapons, but as the presence of force declined, Saddam's 
     cooperation declined. He began to play games and to obstruct 
     the inspection effort.
       By 1998 the situation was untenable. Saddam had made 
     inspections impossible. President Clinton, in February 1998, 
     declared that Saddam would have to comply with the U.N. 
     resolutions or face American military force. Kofi Annan flew 
     to Baghdad and returned with a new promise of cooperation 
     from Saddam. But Saddam did not cooperate. Congress then 
     passed the Iraq Liberation Act by a vote of 360 to 38 in the 
     House of Representatives; the Senate gave its unanimous 
     consent. Signed into law on October 31, it supported the 
     renewed use of force against Saddam with the objective of 
     changing the regime. By this time, he had openly and utterly 
     rejected the inspections and the U.N. resolutions.
       In November 1998, the Security Council passed a resolution 
     declaring Saddam to be in ``flagrant violation'' of all 
     resolutions going back to 1991. That meant that the cease-
     fire was terminated and the original authorization for the 
     use of force against Saddam was reactivated. President 
     Clinton ordered American forces into action in December 1998.
       But the U.S. military operation was called off after only 
     four days--apparently because President Clinton did not feel 
     able to lead the country in war at a time when he was facing 
     impeachment.
       So inspections stopped. The U.S. ceased to take the lead. 
     But the inspectors reported

[[Page S3283]]

     that as of the end of 1998 Saddam possessed major quantities 
     of WMDs across a range of categories, and particularly in 
     chemical and biological weapons and the means of delivering 
     them by missiles. All the intelligence services of the world 
     agreed on this.
       From that time until late last year, Saddam was left 
     undisturbed to do what he wished with this arsenal of 
     weapons. The international system had given up its ability to 
     monitor and deal with this threat. All through the years 
     between 1998 and 2002 Saddam continued to act and speak and 
     to rule Iraq as a rogue state.
       President Bush made it clear by 2002, and against the 
     background of 9/11, that Saddam must be brought into 
     compliance. It was obvious that the world could not leave 
     this situation as it was. The U.S. made the decision to 
     continue to work within the scope of the Security Council 
     resolutions--a long line of them--to deal with Saddam. After 
     an extended and excruciating diplomatic effort, the Security 
     Council late in 2002 passed Resolution 1441, which gave 
     Saddam one final chance to comply or face military force. 
     When on December 8, 2002, Iraq produced its required report, 
     it was clear that Saddam was continuing to play games and to 
     reject his obligations under international law. His report, 
     thousands of pages long, did not in any way account for the 
     remaining weapons of mass destruction that the U.N. 
     inspectors had reported to be in existence as of the end of 
     1998. That assessment was widely agreed upon.
       That should have been that. But the debate at the U.N. went 
     on--and on. And as it went on it deteriorated. Instead of the 
     focus being kept on Iraq and Saddam, France induced others to 
     regard the problem as one of restraining the U.S.--a position 
     that seemed to emerge from France's aspirations for greater 
     influence in Europe and elsewhere. By March of 2003 it was 
     clear that French diplomacy had resulted in splitting NATO, 
     the European Union, and the Security Council . . . and 
     probably convincing Saddam that he would not face the use of 
     force. The French position, in effect, was to say that Saddam 
     had begun to show signs of cooperation with the U.N. 
     resolutions because more than 200,000 American troops were 
     poised on Iraq's borders ready to strike him; so the U.S. 
     should just keep its troops poised there for an indeterminate 
     time to come, until presumably France would instruct us that 
     we could either withdraw or go into action. This of course 
     was impossible militarily, politically, and financially.
       Where do we stand now? These key points need to be 
     understood:
       There as never been a clearer case of a rogue state using 
     its privileges of statehood to advance its dictator's 
     interest in ways that defy and endanger the international 
     state system.
       The international legal case against Saddam--17 
     resolutions--was unprecedented.
       The intelligence services of all involved nations and the 
     U.N. inspectors over more than a decade all agreed that 
     Saddam possessed weapons of mass destruction that posed a 
     threat to international peace and security.
       Saddam had four undisturbed years to augment, conceal, 
     disperse, otherwise deal with his arsenal.
       He used every means to avoid cooperating or explaining what 
     he has done with them. This refusal in itself was, under the 
     U.N. resolutions, adequate grounds for resuming the military 
     operation against him that had been put in abeyance in 1991 
     pending his compliance.
       President Bush, in ordering U.S. forces into action, stated 
     that we were doing so under U.N. Security Council Resolutions 
     678 and 687, the original basis for military action against 
     Saddam Hussein in 1991. Those who criticize the U.S. for 
     unilateralism should recognize that no nation in the history 
     of the United Nations has ever engaged in such a sustained 
     and committed multilateral diplomatic effort to adhere to the 
     principles of international law and international 
     organization with the international system. In the end, it 
     was the U.S. that upheld and acted in accordance with the 
     U.N. resolutions on Iraq, not those on the Security Council 
     who tried to stop us.
       The question of weapons of mass destruction is just that: a 
     question that remains to be answered, a mystery that must be 
     solved. Just as we also must solve the mystery of how Libya 
     and Iran developed menacing nuclear capability without 
     detection, of how we were caught unaware of a large and 
     flourishing black market in nuclear material, and of how we 
     discovered these developments before they got completely out 
     of hand and have put in place promising corrective processes. 
     The question of Iraq's presumed stockpile of weapons will be 
     answered, but that answer, however it comes out, will not 
     affect the fully justifiable and necessary action that the 
     coalition has undertaken to bring an end to Saddam Hussein's 
     rule over Iraq. As David Kay put it in a February 1 interview 
     with Chris Wallace, ``We know there were terrorist groups in 
     state still seeking WMD capability. Iraq, although I found no 
     weapons, had tremendous capabilities in this area. A 
     marketplace phenomena was about to occur, if it did not 
     occur; sellers meeting buyers. And I think that would have 
     been very dangerous if the war had not intervened.''
       When asked by Mr. Wallace what the sellers could have sold 
     if they didn't have actual weapons, Mr. Kay said: ``The 
     knowledge of how to make them, the knowledge of how to make 
     small accounts, which is, after all, mostly what terrorists 
     want. They don't want battlefield amounts of weapons. No, 
     Iraq remained a very dangerous place in terms of WMD 
     capabilities, even though we found no large stockpiles of 
     weapons.''
       Above all, and in the long run, the most important aspect 
     of the Iraq war will be what it means for the integrity of 
     the internationals system and for the effort to deal 
     effectively with terrorism. The stakes are huge and the 
     terrorists know that as well as we do. That is the reason for 
     their tactic of violence in Iraq. And that is why, for us and 
     for our allies, failure is not an option. The message is that 
     the U.S. and others in the world who recognize the need to 
     sustain our international system will no longer quietly 
     acquiesce in the take-over of states by lawless dictators who 
     then carry on their depredations--including the development 
     of awesome weapons for threats, use, or sale--behind the 
     shield of protection that statehood provides. If you are one 
     of these criminals in charge of a state, you no longer should 
     expect to be allowed to be inside the system at the same time 
     that you are a deadly enemy of it.
       September 11 forced us to comprehend the extent and danger 
     of the challenge. We began to act before our enemy was able 
     to extend and consolidate his network.
       If we put this in terms of World War II, we are now 
     sometime around 1937. In the 1930s, the world failed to do 
     what it needed to do to head off a world war. Appeasement 
     never works. Today we are in action. We must not flinch. With 
     a powerful interplay of strength and diplomacy, we can win 
     this war.

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