[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 157 (Thursday, December 8, 2005)]
[House]
[Page H11271]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            THE WAR IN IRAQ

  Mr. DUNCAN. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to assume the time 
of the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Burton).
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from Tennessee?
  There was no objection.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Duncan) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. DUNCAN. Mr. Speaker, in August of 2002, 2 months before Congress 
voted for the war in Iraq, Dick Armey, then our Republican majority 
leader, gave a speech in Des Moines, Iowa. He said, ``I don't believe 
America will justifiably make an unprovoked attack on another nation. 
It would not be consistent with what we have been as a Nation.''
  The very popular conservative columnist, Charley Reese wrote, before 
the war, that it was ``ludicrous'' to believe Iraq was any kind of 
threat to us. Mr. Reese added, ``This is a prescription for the decline 
and fall of the American Empire. Overextension, urged by a bunch of 
rabid intellectuals who wouldn't know one end of a gun from another has 
doomed many an empire. Just let the United States try to occupy the 
Middle East,'' Mr. Reese said, ``which will be the practical result of 
a war against Iraq, and Americans will be bled dry by the costs both in 
blood and treasure.''
  The conservative columnist, Paul Craig Roberts, Assistant Secretary 
of the Treasury under President Reagan wrote, before the war, that a 
``U.S. invasion of Iraq is the beginning of World War IV.'' He 
considered the Cold War as World War III.
  Mr. Roberts added that going to war in Iraq ``will not solve the 
Israeli-American conflict with militant Islam. On the contrary, it will 
widen it.''
  Jack Kemp wrote before the war, ``What is the evidence that should 
cause us to fear Iraq more than Pakistan or Iran. Do we reserve the 
right to launch a preemptive war exclusively for ourselves or might 
other nations such as India, Pakistan or China be justified in taking 
similar action on the basis of fears of other nations?''
  Mr. Kemp said, based on the evidence that he had seen, there was not 
``a compelling case for the invasion and occupation of Iraq.''
  James Webb, Secretary of the Navy, under President Reagan, wrote a 
column for The Washington Post, before the war, saying if we invaded, 
we would have to occupy Iraq for 30 to 50 years and that American 
soldiers would ``quickly become 50,000 terrorist targets.''
  He added, ``These concerns and others like them are the reasons that 
many with long experience in U.S. national security issues remain 
unconvinced by the arguments for a unilateral invasion of Iraq. 
Unilateral wars designed to bring about regime change and a long-term 
occupation should be undertaken only when a nation's existence is 
clearly at stake.''
  Many other conservative columnists, such as Doug Bandow, Pat 
Buchanan, Joseph Sobran, Steven Chapman, the late Sam Francis, and many 
others, wrote columns opposing this war before it started.
  Later, William F. Buckley said if he had known in 2002 what he knew 
then, in 2004, he would have opposed the war.
  Lewis Lapham, writing in Harper's Magazine, before the war, said, 
``the Iraqi Army, never formidable, is less dangerous now than when it 
was routed in the 4 days of the Gulf War, Iraqi Air Force of no 
consequence, the civilian economy too impoverished.''
  U.S. News and World Report in October of 2002, before the war, 
carried a lengthy article entitled ``Why War, Why Now?'' and said, 
``Many question the rush to attack.''
  Fortune Magazine, long before the war, carried an article entitled 
``Iraq, We Win. What then?'' The article said a ``military victory 
could turn into a strategic defeat'' and that an American occupation 
would be ``prolonged and expensive,'' and ``could turn U.S. troops into 
sitting ducks for Islamic terrorists.''
  When they found out I was against the war, the White House had me and 
five other members down for a briefing by then National Security 
Advisor Condoleezza Rice, George Tenet and John McLaughlin, the two top 
people in the CIA.
  I asked how much Saddam Hussein's military budget was in comparison 
to ours. I was told a little over 2/10 of 1 percent.
  I asked if you could get by the traditional conservative positions of 
being against huge deficit spending and making the U.S. the policeman 
of the world and placing almost all of the burden of enforcing U.N. 
resolutions on our people, was there any evidence at all of an eminent 
threat?
  Mr. Tenet said no, there was not. And he later confirmed this in a 
speech at Georgetown University the day after he resigned.
  According to Bob Woodward's book on the war, the President received a 
briefing from these same CIA officials on December 21, 2\1/2\ months 
after the Congressional vote and responded with words to the effect, 
``Is that the best you've got. That will never convince Joe Public.''
  Quoting Charley Reese, the conservative columnist again, the war in 
Iraq was ``against a country that was not attacking us, did not have 
the means to attack us, and had never expressed any intention of 
attacking us, and for whatever real reason we attacked Iraq, it was not 
to save America from any danger, imminent or otherwise.''
  Many conservative leaders and columnists were against this war from 
the beginning because it went against almost every traditional 
conservative position and there was nothing conservative about this 
war.
  The traditional conservative position was stated many years ago by 
Senator Robert Taft who said, ``No foreign policy can be justified 
except a policy devoted to the protection of the American people, with 
war only as the last resort and only to preserve that liberty.''

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