[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 148 (2002), Part 12]
[House]
[Pages 16368-16373]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                          THE IRAQI SITUATION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Ferguson). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 3, 2001, the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. McInnis) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I found the previous speakers' comments 
interesting. In part their comments were accurate, but I should point 
out that when we talk about the Kyoto treaty, what they should bring to 
the attention of the body is that when it was voted on by the United 
States Senate, the vote was 99-0. 99-0. That was not all Republicans, 
that was Democrats and Republicans combined in the United States 
Senate. Not one vote in favor of that so-called treaty. Why? Because 
that treaty unfairly assaulted the United States of America.
  Obviously we as elected representatives of this country want to stand 
in front of this body and stand in front of the American public and 
commit to do things that are better. We can do a lot more to conserve, 
everybody in this country, in this world, can do more to conserve and, 
frankly, conservation right now is going to get us a lot further than 
my colleague's suggestion that the President of the United States 
convert his ranch in Texas to solar power. Conservation is the answer 
right now. In the long run, solar power, in the long run energy from 
waves, in the long run energy from other sources is what is going to be 
the answer, but in the short time, sitting here and condemning the 
United States of America as some people might do or feeling that the 
United States of America should hang its head low is wrong. The leading 
technologies in the world on environmental control, on assisting us 
with stopping pollution, on making coal cleaner burning and so on, 
without a doubt the leading technologies in the world are developed by 
the scientists in the United States of America. There is no other 
country in the world that has helped more other countries with their 
environmental problems, assisting them, sending them financial aid, 
doing anything we can to assist, than the United States of America.
  The United States of America has nothing to apologize about. The 
United States of America is committed to do things better. But I for 
one am tired of seeing foreign country after foreign country after 
foreign country bash the United States of America. And we see it come 
to this floor. Some of our colleagues, while well intended, seem to get 
up here and become apologists for the greatest country in the history 
of the world. This country, the United States of America, has fought 
for other countries, has gone overseas more than any other country in 
the history of the world to fight not for American land but to fight 
for other people in this world.
  Who do you think led the battle in Bosnia? Who do you think got 
communism out of Europe? You can go to example after example after 
example. It is the United States of America. To see some of my 
colleagues, or to see people stand up and continually bash the United 
States and put a spin on it is discouraging.
  Take a look at Berkeley University. I cannot even imagine. There is 
an actual debate at Berkeley University on the commemoration for 
September 11, whether they should allow red, white and blue to be worn. 
Not a flag, just the colors red, white and blue, whether they should be 
allowed to be worn on campus because it might offend somebody. The 
American flag might offend somebody, so maybe we ought to take it down. 
Come on. Give me a break. Patriotism in this country today is still 
very strong. This country has got a lot more things going right for it 
than it does wrong. This country will stand head to head with any other 
nation, not just existing nations today, but look in the history of the 
world, and I challenge my colleagues, look in the history of the world 
to find one nation that has done as much as this Nation has done for 
the poor people in the world, for hungry people in the world, gone to 
the defense of many, many nations in the history of the world, educated 
more people than any other country in the world, educated them to a 
higher level than any other country in the world.
  And what is the biggest export of this country that no other country 
can match? In fact, cumulatively, if you put all the history of the 
countries together in the world, they do not even come close to 
exporting what the United States of America exports as its biggest 
item. What is that item? It is freedom. The United States of America 
has broken the ice. It has taken the lead. It has put the footprints in 
the sand for freedom. And we see that some of our citizens for some 
reason act ashamed of being an American. The beauty of freedom is that 
they can always move. If the beauty of this country is so bad that you 
do not think it can be improved or you think that you have to 
continually criticize this Nation, go somewhere else.
  I am one of those people that likes to look at the good things that 
this Nation does. Look what this Nation has done for the world in the 
development of medicine, in the development of vaccinations, in the 
fight against cancer. We can go down a list of a thousand different 
items. You pick the items. And amongst the very top of doing positive 
things, of doing good things, is the United States of America.

                                  2045

  Many times, many times the United States of America, when nobody else 
would stand up, it is the United States of America that ends up 
standing up. It is the United States of America that is the first one 
out of the foxhole, and it has not come without cost.
  Many years ago, remember when the United States put weapons on 
European soil to stop the Russian Communist machine from moving in? And 
not all the students, but a bunch of student protests were organized, 
frankly organized by professionals in Europe; and the European leaders 
got pretty fragile, and I understand it. They were under a lot of 
pressure, get American troops off European soil. Americans go home. 
Americans, you are not welcome. The doctrine of appeasement. Communism 
is not going to take us. Communism, Americans are trying to over-
exaggerate the situation.
  In fact it went to the state where de Gaulle calls Johnson, gets 
Johnson on the phone. ``Mr. President,'' he says, ``I want all American 
troops off European soil.'' And, as the story goes, President Johnson 
replies to Mr. de Gaulle, ``Mr. de Gaulle, does that include all of the 
American troops buried beneath your soil?''
  America is a great country, but, once again, as we speak today, 
America will be called to a great task, a task not only brought to 
light by the events of 1 year ago on September 11, but a task that 
because of our strength, because of our capability to lead, the United 
States must answer the call; and it is not a small task, it is a great 
task, to which we have been called.
  We have got to go out, and we have got to stop the proliferation 
amongst terrorists, amongst mad people, of these types of weapons that 
they are currently right now underneath our noses and in many cases 
with the knowledge of the world developing. So this evening I really 
want to focus my comments on our situation with the al Qaeda, and our 
situation with Iraq.
  I do not know how many Members saw the headline today, what the al 
Qaeda said in the last few days, or at least it has now come to our 
attention. Pay very careful attention. Please, if you are doing 
something out there, colleagues, put it down. All I want, if you do not 
listen to anything else I say this evening, if you do not listen or do 
not

[[Page 16369]]

remember anything else I say this evening, give me 15 seconds. That is 
all I am asking you for, 15 seconds. If this does not shake you up, I 
do not know what will. Give me 15 seconds.
  This is the quote from the al Qaeda. For those of you colleagues out 
there, here is your 15 seconds. Take 15 seconds to look at this poster.
  Let me read it. I was stunned when I saw this; not surprised, but 
stunned. Let us go through it. This is the al Qaeda, the leadership of 
the al Qaeda. This is not directed at the U.K.; it is not directed at 
France. It is directed at the United States of America, and, in turn, 
when it is focused on the United States of America, to our good friends 
overseas. And we have many allies overseas, and we have good allies 
overseas.
  Do not be mistaken. Just because they are at the door of America's 
kindergartens today does not mean that they will not be at the door of 
your kindergartens tomorrow.
  Look at what this says. This is why I want this 15 seconds: ``We are 
emerging stronger, and we will hit America. We will hit America's 
shopping malls, their stadiums and kindergartens. This is our promise. 
Al Qaeda.''
  As I go on with my remarks this evening, I want to build a case for 
some of my constituents and for some of my colleagues who wonder 
whether or not we should not just kind of look the other way when it 
comes to the situation in Iraq.
  Keep in mind that Iraq and the al Qaeda are comrades in arms. These 
people have one very strong common bond: they want to see the 
destruction of every man, woman and child, and keep in mind, child, 
kindergartners, of America. And when they are done with America, they 
will want to see the destruction of every man, woman and child in 
Canada. And when they are done with Canada, they will want to see it in 
France, and they will want to see it in the United Kingdom. They will 
want to see it wherever they can get it.
  These people are mad people, but they are smart and they are 
intelligent. That is obvious by the strike they carried out against the 
United States.
  This is a cancer we are dealing with. The people that speak like 
this, that carry out these acts, they are the equivalent of a horrible, 
fast-moving malignant cancer.
  I spoke recently back in my district, and I said it is kind of like 
you are walking around and you go to the doctor, and the doctor says, 
``We just did an x-ray, and inside your foot, you do not feel it, but 
inside your foot our x-ray tells us that you have a malignant cancer 
that is developing and spreading very quickly.''
  You say to the doctor, ``Doc, my foot feels fine. I do not feel 
anything in my foot. I really do not want to face cancer.''
  The doctor says, ``Look, in trying to attack this cancer we may very 
well have to amputate your foot, which means you will never run again. 
It is going to be a severe interruption in your life. It is going to 
interrupt your financial status. It is going to have an impact 
psychologically on you. And the chemotherapy that may be necessary may 
have to be very aggressive, and it too will interrupt your lifestyle.''
  But you say to the doctor, ``Doctor, I do not have any pain in my 
foot. I did not come in to see you about my foot. You show me this x-
ray, but, I don't know, I am not feeling the pain. I am not feeling the 
pain. I do not know whether I want you to do what you say you have to 
do with my foot.''
  That is what we are dealing with here. We have got people in this 
country who say out of sight, out of mind. Do not be mistaken, Iraq is 
not an idle threat sitting out there. It is a very realistic threat 
that could happen today, it could happen tomorrow, or it could happen 5 
years from now.
  Saddam Hussein, keep in mind, I saw Bill O'Reilly tonight on TV, and 
Bill O'Reilly on TV was talking about a guy in jail in Texas that had 
allegedly killed 80 women, the most horrible criminal they have ever 
seen in their lives. Eighty women. It is a horrible person. All of us 
gasp at how horrible a person must be that commits these kind of 
murders. That is a serial killer. We all feel that way.
  But, for some reason, when I talk to some about Saddam Hussein, when 
I listen to some of my colleagues, they hold that individual with 
higher esteem than they do serial killers within our own borders. And 
keep in mind what Saddam Hussein did. He invaded Kuwait. What did he do 
in Kuwait? They killed thousands of men, women and children in Kuwait 
in their invasion. His armies went in without provocation, and the 
reason his armies went in was to grab that oil in Kuwait.
  And, once again, the country that I find more and more people 
apologizing for, or bashing, the United States of America is the one 
that led to the freedom and the liberation of Kuwait against a 
murderous tyrant, Saddam Hussein.
  Keep in mind that it was Saddam Hussein for the first time, I think, 
and I am not a historian, a professor of history, but it was the first 
time I think that you had a coordinated assassination effort by the 
president of a country against the United States President.
  Saddam Hussein, the evidence is absolutely clear, it was clear to the 
Clinton administration and it is clear to any law enforcement 
investigative agency, attempted to assassinate George Bush, Sr.; and it 
was only by a little luck that that assassination did not come off.
  So we know that Saddam Hussein has killed thousands and thousands of 
men, women and children when he invaded Kuwait without provocation. 
That, standing alone, that standing alone ought to put him at the 
bottom of your list as far as respect or any kind of justification of 
why Saddam Hussein is still alive.
  This guy is a bad guy. He is a malignant cancer out there. But 
Kuwait, if Kuwait is not enough, then take a look at what he tried to 
do to the President, our own President of this country, George Bush, 
Sr. If that is not enough, keep in mind our young men and women that 
are in the military, that are stationed in Turkey. Every day, almost 
every day of the week in the no-fly zones as designated by the United 
Nations, as agreed upon by Iraq, every day Iraq fires missiles at 
United States or allied aircraft in an attempt to destroy them. These 
aircraft are not flying out of their territory. They are flying within 
the territory designated as a no-fly zone by Iraq in joint agreement 
with United Nations. And yet for some reason people are reluctant to 
take out Saddam Hussein.
  Look at the people within his own country that he gassed. Look at the 
Kurds. You can list example after example after example of how horribly 
evil, how malignant Saddam Hussein is and why we have got to do 
something.
  We do not have any choice here; at least we do not have any viable 
choice. I guess we do have a choice. We can pretend that these weapons 
that they are developing, that they would have never used them or will 
never use them.
  Frankly, I do not think Saddam Hussein, certainly if he had nuclear 
weapons today, and we know he has biological weapons, and I am going to 
read you some information about that here in a few minutes, I really do 
not think that Saddam would use them against the United States of 
America today. I think he would use them against Israel, but I do not 
think he would use them against the United States. He is no fool. He is 
a smart man. That is what I said earlier. He is a smart man. He knows 
that if he used them against the United States of America and the 
United States was able to track down, which we could probably do pretty 
quickly, as to where those weapons came from, who used them against us, 
that we have the weapon capability to destroy Iraq within minutes. So 
he is no fool. He does not want to see the United States of America 
retaliate with a massive, overwhelming attack that would destroy his 
country.
  So do not think that Saddam Hussein will probably use the weapons 
himself. What he will do with these weapons is he will give them out. 
He will give them to the people like the al Qaeda, the people that 
swear that they are not done with America, that they are going

[[Page 16370]]

after our kindergartens. Notice they do not say they are going after 
the military; notice they do not say they will engage in open warfare. 
They are going to go to the shopping malls, to the stadiums, and to the 
kindergartens.
  The thing for me in Oklahoma City, what appalled me, the whole thing 
was horrible, a criminal act, but what was especially embedded in my 
memory of Oklahoma City was the fact that they had that preschool in 
there and Timothy McVeigh and his coconspirators, they did not care 
that there were small children in the Federal building in Oklahoma 
City. They killed those children without thought.

                              {time}  2100

  But that number was in the tens and tens. These numbers, if these 
people continue to develop the weapons and are given the weapons by 
people like Saddam Hussein, the next time they tally a hit against the 
kindergarten like we see in Oklahoma City, we will see numbers in the 
thousands and tens of thousands. New York City was 3,000; the Pentagon 
was a couple of hundred. Those casualties are stunning casualties, 
horrible, tragic; but the next time, their goal will be to add another 
comma to the fatalities, to the ravage that they wield upon the United 
States of America or upon our allies.
  Now let me say that this problem of Saddam Hussein is not something 
that just came up under the Bush administration. I am amazed, frankly. 
And this is a bipartisan effort that we have to make. But I am amazed 
at the position that the Democratic party has taken. I am amazed at 
some of the leading Democrats in the United States Congress, the 
demands that they are making upon President Bush, the implications that 
they are making upon the President, that somehow he is some kind of 
wild Texas cowboy that wants to start a war.
  I am going to go through what President Bill Clinton, their favorite 
President, the President most strongly supported by the liberal 
community, I am going to go through some quotes that President Clinton 
said several years ago about Saddam Hussein.
  This is a very serious problem we are dealing with. I have never been 
more, I guess, in deep thought or sober about a situation than I am 
about the situation that we face today on the international circuit 
with the al Qaeda and with Iraq. I am stunned. Obviously, I do not 
disagree at all that the United States Congress, it is our obligation 
to be engaged in debate and to be engaged in the public policy, and to 
be engaged in the declaration of any type of war that this country 
might engage in.
  So the comments that I am making are not whether or not we should 
have public debate in the United States Congress. I think that is good. 
What I am talking about this evening are how all of a sudden some of 
the individuals who stood right behind Bill Clinton and urged President 
Clinton, and these are Democrats, urged President Clinton to take 
immediate action to adopt a war resolution against Iraq, have done a 
complete reverse, saying, well, President Bush is going to have to 
answer a whole bunch of questions. We are not sure. Where is the 
justification for taking on Iraq? Where 3 or 4 years ago they were 
standing side by side, shoulder to shoulder, demanding that President 
Clinton and supporting him: We have to go into Iraq. We have to do 
something about that.
  That is not stuff I am just making up. I have it right here. Let us 
go through it a little. This is probably an appropriate time. Let us 
look at President Clinton here.
  President Clinton understood the threat then. Now, I think there has 
been a little spin put on it. I noticed that the other day the 
President said, or reported, and the President did not say it to me, I 
did not hear it from his mouth, but the President said if we were to 
take on Iraq, Saddam Hussein, that he, the President, that he does 
possess weapons, and the concern would be that he would use those 
weapons.
  If we take that out logically, what we are saying is we should not go 
against Saddam because he might use these weapons. That is exactly the 
kind of leverage that Saddam Hussein wants to have with the rest of the 
world, the doctrine of nonproliferation.
  And keep in mind, it was the liberals, and I am not trying to assail 
a particular affiliation, but there is a clear line here as to our 
ideas and our policies. It was the liberals that said, look, 
nonproliferation; let us hope this cancer goes away. Let us pray it 
away. Let us have peace throughout the world.
  There are a lot of these countries out there that, unfortunately, no 
matter how much we pray, and I pray, and prayer is good, but no matter 
how much we pray, no matter how many hands we offer, no matter what we 
do, they are determined to wipe us off the face of the Earth. And it is 
not an idle threat. It was not an idle threat a year ago on September 
11, and it will not be an idle threat a year from now.
  We have to face up to the fact that there is a malignant cancer, no 
matter how much we pray, and it helps, and no matter how much we hope, 
no matter how well our neighbor talks to us and says, look, things are 
going to be all right, and they hold hands and we have lots of hugs and 
lots of tears and lots of love; people come up and say, we are going to 
help you, and all of that; that is all good, but the fact is that evil 
devil of malignant cancer is still in us, and that is the problem we 
have right here.
  This kind of thing, this kind of thing right here, ``We are emerging 
stronger, and we will hit America's shopping malls, stadiums, and 
kindergartens,'' that is a malignant cancer. We are not going to pray 
or hope that thought away. The only way we are going to be able to 
eliminate this threat is we have to take the fight to them.
  Let us look at Bill Clinton's comments, the former President. I will 
read them: ``What if Saddam Hussein fails to comply and we fail to act, 
or we take some ambiguous third route which gives him yet more 
opportunities to develop his programs of weapons of mass destruction, 
and continue to press for the release of sanctions, and continue to 
ignore the solemn commitments that he made? Well, he will conclude that 
the international community has lost its will. He will then conclude 
that he can go right on and do more to rebuild an arsenal of 
devastating destruction.''
  That was President Bill Clinton, February 18, 1998, 4 years ago; over 
4 years ago; 4\1/2\ years ago those were the profound and well-spoken 
words, and right on point, of President Clinton. Does anybody in these 
Chambers believe that the capability, the destructive capability, of 
Saddam Hussein has reduced, has been reduced? Does anybody in here 
believe, really, truly in their hearts, that this madman has abandoned 
his weapons of mass destruction, which include chemical warfare and the 
attempt to get nuclear weapons?
  We know in our hearts that he has not. We wish it were not true. 
Again, going to the example, we wish in our heart we did not have the 
cancer, we wish it was not true, we wish we were having a bad dream, 
and tomorrow morning we could wake up and it would be a bad dream, but 
it is reality. We have a commitment. We have a solemn commitment to the 
American people that we are willing and able to stand up to the great 
task which sits in front of us, and that great task, of course, is to 
secure the safety of not only this Nation but our allies, as well.
  I know we are getting a lot of bashing by our allies, and we have a 
lot of allies that say, look, do it on your own. This is a dirty job. 
This is going to require some dirty work. We have some fair-weathered 
friends out there, but nonetheless, they are friends. They do not want 
to get their hands dirty. They do not want to get out there in the 
battlefield. They want the United States to do it.
  If the United States does it alone and succeeds, we will be 
criticized for having done it on our own. But the reality of it is, 
somebody has got to do it. We cannot continue to let this cancer 
fester, because if we do, they are going to be successful. Knock on 
wood, and with the blessing of God, they have not hit our kindergarten 
yet. But Members know that is one of their targets. That is what they 
have told us. The statement is clear.

[[Page 16371]]

  Let us go through some history here: ``Administration rhetoric could 
hardly be stronger.'' This is an article, by the way, taken out of the 
Weekly Standard, the newsletter. ``The President asked the Nation to 
consider this question.'' This is President Bill Clinton: ``What if 
Saddam Hussein fails to comply, and we fail to act,'' as I said on the 
chart that I showed you, and this guy is allowed to continue.
  This article goes on: ``The President,'' again, referring to 
President Clinton, ``His warnings are firm. If we fail to respond 
today, Saddam and all those who would follow in his footsteps will be 
emboldened tomorrow. The stakes,'' again, Bill Clinton, 4\1/2\ years 
ago on Iraq, ``The stakes could not be higher.''
  This is a quote from Bill Clinton: ``Some day, some way, I guarantee 
you he will use the arsenal.'' That is 4\1/2\ years ago, and our 
President ably and quite accurately recognized the threat. I can tell 
the Members that several of the leading Democrats, the Democrat 
leadership, got right behind the President in regard to the statement.
  Yet those very leaders today are questioning President Bush: He is 
overreacting, he is overstating, he had better have the evidence to 
prove all of this. What a 360-degree or a 180-degree turn in the last 
4\1/2\ years.
  Let me continue on. Those are not the words of President George W. 
Bush in September of 2002, but of President Bill Clinton on February 
18, 1998. Clinton was speaking at the Pentagon after the Joint Chiefs 
and other top national security advisors had briefed him on U.S. 
military readiness. The televised speech followed a month-long buildup 
of United States troops and equipment in the Persian Gulf, and it won 
applause from leading Democrats on Capitol Hill.
  But just 5 days later, Kofi Annan, with the United Nations, struck 
yet another deal with the Iraqi dictator which once more gave the 
United Nations inspectors permission to inspect, and Saddam won again. 
Of course, much has changed since President Clinton gave that speech. 
The situation has gotten worse.
  ``Ten months after Saddam accepted Annan's offer, he kicked U.N. 
inspectors out of Iraq for good. We complained and the United States 
bombed a little. Then we stopped bombing. Later we stepped up our 
enforcement of the no-fly zones. A year after the inspectors were 
banished, the United Nations created a new toothless inspection regime. 
The new inspectors inspected nothing.''
  If Saddam Hussein was a major threat in February of 1998 when 
President Bill Clinton prepared this country for war, and United 
Nations inspectors were still inside Iraq, it stands to reason that in 
the absence of those inspectors monitoring this weapons buildup, that 
Saddam is even a greater threat today.
  Now, keep in mind the history that we have seen with the Germans, for 
example, in World War I. The complaints that we see coming out of Iraq, 
oh, this is the proprietary area of our borders, for protection of our 
country; we should not be forced to have inspectors in the country; 
they are picking on poor old me; well, look at the arguments against 
inspections, although Germany agreed to it after World War I, as 
compared to what Saddam Hussein. And by the way, he has agreed to all 
of this. He signed a compact never to have these weapons in the history 
of his country.
  But compare that back in history with after World War I, what the 
Germans did, and what the European response was to the Germans. It was 
a doctrine of, well, we are picking on him. We really should not be 
inspecting this country. We really ought to respect their borders. We 
ought to take them on their word, or make them promise. But U.S., you 
are exaggerating.
  What was happening? The Germans were building up their gas munitions. 
We all know what happened a few years later when the Germans utilized 
these things. That is what is happening here, and that is what this 
article says.
  The quotes that we have been giving, with the exception of this, this 
is not from 1998, this is very recent, but the quotes were from 
President Bill Clinton. He recognized the threat in 1998, and so did 
the Democratic leadership. Why is it that in 2002, the Democratic 
leadership is pretending as if none of this has occurred? They are 
making demands upon President Bush that they never made upon President 
Clinton.
  I think every President has an obligation to their Nation, and I 
think they are constitutionally required to justify taking this country 
into a military action. After all, we are asking our sons and daughters 
to go in in defense of this country and to take an affirmative action 
against another country where the probability of loss of life is very 
high. We ought to meet the highest of standards.
  But it is my position today, and I think it ought to be Members' 
positions, that those standards have been met for some time; that right 
underneath our nose we have a man who has cooperated with people like 
al Qaeda; a man who invaded another country and killed thousands and 
thousands of people; a leader, a man who poisoned and gassed his own 
people; a man who, almost on a daily basis, fires missiles against 
American and allied aircraft. We know what he is doing. We are meeting 
the standards that demand that America do something about this.
  I would hope that our allies come on board. I would hope we get 
assistance from our allies. We cannot turn a blind eye to a malignant 
cancer, and we cannot turn a blind eye to Saddam Hussein.

                              {time}  2115

  You cannot do it. It will always come back to get you, and it will be 
your kindergartens that will suffer in the future if we do not respond 
affirmatively today.
  Now does that mean we send in more inspectors? The only way you 
should send in more inspectors is on a time basis and those inspectors 
have unconditional entry into that country and they can go wherever 
they want in Iraq and do whatever kind of tests are necessary to run to 
ascertain that these weapons are, in fact, not in existence. I doubt 
seriously that that will occur.
  Now, Iraq, by the way, may say, just to stall, they may say, okay, we 
will agree to it. But a week later you will find that there is a flat 
tire on the bus, that they are not going to let them go where they need 
to go. We cannot continue to fool around with this malignant cancer. We 
have got to sit up to reality. We have got to face reality. We have got 
to aggressively attack this cancer.
  Now, I am not a military expert. I do not know what the military 
strategy should be. But I do know this, diplomatically we have not 
achieved the goal of concurring the cancer. It is like saying to a 
patient, I know you have prayed very hard about this. I know you have 
got a lot of family support in fighting this cancer. I know you have 
got a lot of hugs. I know that you have changed your diet. But the fact 
is the malignant cancer is still in your foot and it is aggressively 
moving up into the rest of your body. You face a very tough decision. 
It will inconvenience your life. But in the long run, it is the only 
decision for the preservation of your life that you can make, and that 
is that you have got to accept the reality that it is there, it is 
moving and it will kill you.
  It is the same thing with Iraq. It is there. They are developing and 
have in their possession weapons of mass destruction and they will kill 
us. And if they do not attempt to kill us, they will give it to people 
like the al Qaeda that will carry this out. They do not care about our 
morality, values and our respect for our children and the preservation 
of life. That is obvious by their acts of September 11.
  Let me continue with a few comments. Summing up the Clinton 
administration argument, Senator Daschle said, ``Look, we have 
exhausted virtually all our diplomatic efforts to get the Iraqis to 
comply with their own agreements and with international law. Given 
that, what other option is there but to force them to do so? That is 
what they are saying. This is the key question. And the answer is we do 
not have another option. We have to force

[[Page 16372]]

them to comply and we are doing so militarily.''
  That is from the majority leader, the Democratic majority leader, the 
president of Senate. All of the sudden that is not what we are hearing 
today.
  Let me continue. ``John Kerry was equally hawkish. `If there is not 
unfettered, unrestricted, unlimited access per the United Nations' 
resolution for inspections and UNSCOM cannot in our judgment 
appropriately perform its functions, then we obviously reserve the 
rights to press the case internationally and do what we need to do in 
order to enforce those rights. Saddam Hussein has already used these 
weapons and has made it clear that he has the intent to continue to try 
by virtue of his duplicity and secrecy to continue to do so. That is a 
threat to the stability of the Middle East. It is a threat with respect 
to the potential of terrorist activities on a global basis. It is a 
threat even to regions near but not exactly in the Middle East.'''
  These are comments made by leadership of the Democratic Party in 
1998; and yet today when you read the paper, well, we should defer this 
decision until after the elections, as if Saddam Hussein schedules his 
development of weapons of mass destruction, he sets them so that they 
are convenient with our election dates in this country.
  It amazes me that with these kinds of threats in existence, with the 
knowledge that we had in 1998 that we know has not changed in 4\1/2\ 
years, in fact, has only increased, that we have hesitancy, that we 
have hesitancy by some of these very leaders that advocated action in 
1998, not to do action in 2002 or to delay it and wait and wait and 
wait. Maybe the doctrine of appeasement does not work. The fact is we 
have to deal with it.


                Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Ferguson). The gentleman will refrain 
from casting reflections of sitting Members of the Senate.
  Mr. McINNIS. Let me finish off this article with this quote from 
President Clinton in 1998: ``We have to defend our future from these 
predators of the 21st century.''
  This is President Clinton I am referring to.
  Let me repeat my comment. From President Clinton: ``We have to defend 
our future from these predators of the 21st century.'' To leave the 
quote for a minute, I absolutely agree 100 percent with what President 
Clinton was saying here. He was right then and George W. Bush is right 
today.
  Continuing: ``We have to defend our future from these predators of 
the 21st century,'' he argued. ``They will be all the more lethal if we 
allow them to build arsenals of nuclear, chemical, and biological 
weapons and the missiles to deliver them. We simply cannot allow that 
to happen. There is no more clear example of this threat than Saddam 
Hussein.'' And as the article says: ``What more do you need to say?''
  Now, we have taken some steps and we have taken some bipartisan 
steps, our missile defense system. The President has made commitment 
and we, as a Congress, have increased significantly the budgets, our 
military budgets, our defense mechanisms, but here is our biggest 
weakness. We have a very large Nation geographically. It is very tough 
to defend these borders. For example, shipping containers that come in. 
We cannot inspect even close to the number of shipping containers that 
come into this Nation every day. It is kind of like having a village in 
the mountains and from somewhere on the mountain every day you got a 
sniper, somebody shooting into your village. You cannot possibly put up 
a wall to stop these bullets from coming in. Every day that goes by the 
sniper fires another shot into the village.
  At some point the village has to decide we cannot defend our 
perimeter. We will have to take the fight to them. We will have to go 
up on that mountain and find where that sniper is.
  That is the situation we face here today. We cannot just retract on 
our borders within the United States, as some of our allies may 
suggest, that the United States is poking their nose into somebody 
else's business. Well, it became everybody's business after September 
11. And what President Clinton accurately forecasted in 1998 came into 
place on September 11, 1 year ago.
  The time of being able to just sit comfortably here and hope that it 
was not happening out there or enjoying the privilege of the fact that 
it had not happened within the borders of the United States for a long 
time, assuming that Pearl Harbor could go into that classification, and 
it does, those days are gone. We now have to engage in this fight, and 
we have to engage in this in every way possible.
  I am not condemning diplomatic pursuit of some peaceful resolution. I 
am not condemning using prayers if you are trying to fight cancer. I 
think it is very, very helpful. And I think diplomatic efforts are 
very, very necessary. And I am not saying that we should not have 
congressional debate. I think it is constitutionally required. I think 
it is healthy for this Congress, for the people who have elected us to 
represent their views to have that type of debate.
  But what I am saying is we cannot dilly dally around. We cannot any 
longer afford to ignore the fact that the malignant cancer is out 
there. We cannot afford to debate the accuracy of the x-ray very long. 
The x-ray tells us there is cancer. It told us we had cancer 4 years 
ago when President Clinton very accurately said what he has, what 
Saddam Hussein had, and what Saddam Hussein, by the way, supplies to 
the al Qaeda. We know it is there. And it does not do us any good in my 
opinion to continue to try to pretend it is not happening, to try to 
pretend that there is some clean way to handle this, that we can call 
Saddam up on the phone and say, Knock it off. What are you doing? Put 
those weapons in the closet and quit doing this and live peacefully 
with the rest of the world.
  They have no intention of doing anything but destroying as much of 
the rest of the world as they can. And at the top of their list are our 
kindergartens. Every mother and father in America should be in a state 
of absolute dismay and anger today after this quote was released 
yesterday about targeting kindergartens. These are kindergartens in 
America, kindergartens in the United States. Some of us knew that, 
obviously, we think they will target some of these other areas; but for 
them to come out and say, your kindergartens, that is what we will 
target in America, that ought to wake everybody up.
  The time for a debate is rapidly approaching. We should have a 
resolution on this floor as quickly as we can get a resolution on this 
floor. Our allies that belong to the United Nations ought to wake up, a 
lot of them are; but they need to come to the table too. America does 
not want to do it alone. America can do it alone, but America wants to 
be a partner. And I will tell you, our partnership, whether it is 
France, whether it is Hamburg, Germany, whether it is in Poland, all 
free-loving countries in the world are under the threat of this cancer 
of Iraq and the al Qaeda. And we, frankly, despite my criticism today 
or my expression of dismay by some of the remarks we see coming from 
our European allies, I do want to take a moment to tell you that as 
most of you know our European allies have assisted us in many ways with 
this fight against terrorism. But for some reason, I am a little 
baffled by the fact that we cannot get them to come over to this side 
of the line to face the reality of the threat that Iraq has against the 
world.
  It is the United States today. Sure, that is their number one target, 
the United States and Israel. But I can assure our allies it is like 
the big bad wolf. It is at our door today, but it will be at your door 
tomorrow. And we have to team up. This partnership has to stay 
together. This partner, the United States of America, does not want to 
take Iraq on by itself or take on the war against terrorism. And our 
partners have come to the table in large part against the war on 
terrorism. But they are not coming to the table like they ought to be 
on Iraq. And it is time for this partnership meeting, for us to cut to 
the chase, to get down to the work that has to be done, and it is dirty 
work and it is a large task in front of us; but if we do not do it 
today,

[[Page 16373]]

we will have let down, in my opinion I do not think it is too strong a 
word to use the word betrayed, we will have betrayed future generations 
by knowingly allowing a threat to be built of nuclear weapons, chemical 
weapons, biological weapons, to knowingly let that threat and those 
weapons be built by a mad man with the kind of commitments they have 
made to target our kindergartens and we do not take the fight to them.
  It is inherently a responsibility of those of us in Congress to 
debate this. I do not argue that, I said that earlier. But as 
inherently, as strong as the debate is to get that debate completed and 
to move in a unified fashion as this Congress and as the United States 
Senate signaled it would with President Clinton in 1998, and the threat 
has only grown greater.
  I think it is time for both of these Houses to come together in 2002 
and move against the cancer that exists out there as a threat against 
the borders of this country, and as I have said, against the borders of 
our allies wherever they might be located throughout the worlds.
  So I would hope that in the next, I hope in the very immediate 
future, I know that the President is going to the United Nations this 
week, I hope our allies in the United Nations and the people of the 
United Nations understand what a threat this malignancy is out there, 
understand how unsuccessful we have been to convince through diplomatic 
efforts, through inspections, through economic sanctions, through no-
fly zones, how unsuccessful these efforts have been to get Saddam 
Hussein to stop proceeding with these weapons, what the ramifications 
are of these weapons.

                              {time}  2130

  Do my colleagues think that the al Qaeda, if they would have had 
nuclear weapons within their hands, do my colleagues think they would 
have used aircraft on September 11? They would have used nuclear 
weapons.
  Do not forget, this country suffered an attack, a chemical attack, 
anthrax within days of September 11. We got hit with a chemical, with a 
biological attack against this country. Do my colleagues not think if 
the al Qaeda did not have that in their hands in sufficient quantities 
that they would not have used that? They were probably surprised that 
the World Trade towers collapsed. We know from the video that we have 
seen, they were elated by the success of their attack, but this only 
set the base for the al Qaeda. This only sets a base for countries like 
Iraq.
  The next attack, they want to make sure those casualties, children, 
women and men, they want to make sure those casualties are many, many 
multiples of what September 11, the horror that September 11 brought to 
this Nation.
  As I said at the beginning of my remarks, I am trying to think of my 
history. I have been in Congress 10 years. The horrible fires we 
suffered in Colorado this year, all of the different things, big issues 
that I think over these last few years we have dealt with, I cannot 
think of anything that is of a more of a threat, that has more serious 
future consequences than the international situation that we face 
today. Not the economy, not the impeachment several years ago, not the 
fires. We have got to go after that cancer that has centered itself in 
Iraq and has spread to al Qaeda and throughout rest of the world.
  Again, at the conclusion of my remarks this evening, let me repeat 
what President Bill Clinton said 4\1/2\ years ago. President Clinton, 
``We have to defend our future from these predators of the 21st 
century,'' he argued. ``They will be all the more lethal if we allow 
them to build arsenals of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and 
the missiles to deliver them. We simply cannot allow that to happen. 
There is no more clear example of this threat than Saddam Hussein.''
  I will wrap up my comments with 15 more seconds. I would ask my 
colleagues to take 15 seconds and read the poster, and once again, what 
more of a threat, what more of a warning do we need, do we need as a 
Nation than exists out there today? If in 1998 what Saddam Hussein did 
in 1998 was not enough, then was September 11 enough? Then was the acts 
of aggression against Kuwait enough? Was the assassination against 
Bush, Senior enough? If that was not enough, if all of that was not 
enough, this statement standing alone, this statement standing alone 
ought to be enough to bring all of us to bear arms to assure the 
security of this Nation and our friends throughout the world.

                          ____________________