[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 148 (2002), Part 14]
[Senate]
[Pages 19205-19231]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




  AUTHORIZATION OF THE USE OF UNITED STATES ARMED FORCES AGAINST IRAQ

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate will now 
resume consideration of S.J. Res. 45, which the clerk will report.
  The bill clerk read as follows:

       A resolution (S.J. Res. 45) to authorize the use of United 
     States Armed Forces against Iraq.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the time until 4 
p.m. shall be equally divided and controlled between the two leaders or 
their designees with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 15 
minutes each.
  Mr. BYRD. I ask unanimous consent I may have an additional 5 minutes 
over the 15.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, tonight at 8:00 p.m., President Bush will 
make a televised address to speak to the Nation about the threat of 
Iraq. According to press reports from this weekend, the President is 
expected to lay out, in detail, his case against Saddam Hussein, 
including the repressive dictator's long history of violence and 
aggression.
  There is no disagreement about the character of Saddam Hussein, 
neither on Capitol Hill nor in the minds of every American. But while 
the President continues to make his case against Saddam Hussein, the 
issue on the minds of Senators and our constituents is, what exactly is 
the United States planning to do?
  Rather than hearing more about Saddam Hussein--we know enough about 
him--what we need to hear from the President are answers to our 
questions about what he plans to do in Iraq. We need to know why the 
President is demanding that we act now. We need to have some idea of 
what we are getting ourselves into, what the costs and consequences may 
be, and what the President is planning to do after the fighting has 
stopped. After Iraq. After Saddam Hussein. It is not unpatriotic to ask 
these questions, especially when they are already on the minds of all 
Americans.
  Why now? Those two little words: Why now?
  Why now? What has changed in the last year, 6 months, or 2 weeks that 
would compel us to attack now?
  Is Iraq on the verge of attacking the United States? If so, should 
our homeland security alert be elevated? Shouldn't the President be 
spending more time with his military advisors in Washington, instead of 
making campaign speeches all over the country?
  The media reports suggest that the administration does not plan to 
act until February. Why is the President telling Congress it has to act 
before the elections? Why are our own leaders telling us we have to act 
before the elections.

[[Page 19206]]

  What are we signing up for?
  We are about to give the President a blank check to deal with Iraq 
however he sees fit. What exactly is he planning to do with this power?
  Does the President have clear objectives for this war? Does he want 
to disarm Saddam Hussein, or remove him from power?
  When might the fighting end? What conditions must be met before the 
President would determine that the war is over?
  The President has said several times that he wants to use force in 
order to bring Iraq into compliance with its international obligations. 
Why is he then demanding that Congress go even further and give him a 
blank check that would give him the power to commit our country to 
years or even decades of bloody war without the support of our allies?
  We have already given the President a blank check to deal with al-
Qaida, which he used to invade and occupy Afghanistan. Does the 
President plan to fight these two wars separately, or will the 
President combine them into a broader regional campaign?
  What will be the costs of this war?
  How many troops will be involved? Will we exercise the heavy ground 
option or will we exercise the heavy air option? Or might we exercise 
both options? How many reservists will have to leave their jobs to 
serve in uniform?
  Will they be fighting door-to-door combat in downtown Bagdad?
  Do our troops have adequate protection against the chemical and 
biological weapons that Saddam Hussein might employ?
  How many American casualties is the Department of Defense 
anticipating in case the heavy ground option is utilized? How many 
American casualties is the Department of Defense anticipating. ?
  In addition to the cost in blood, war is also a drain on the national 
treasury. How much will it cost to fight this war and to maintain an 
occupation force? Larry Lindsey said it would cost $100 billion to $200 
billion, talking about this war and what it would cost. One hundred to 
two hundred billion dollars, and he said: That's nothing. During the 
Gulf War, our allies contributed $54 billion of the $61 billion cost of 
the war. Leaving the United States holding the bag for roughly $7 
billion, a little over $7 billion out of the $61.1 billion total. Will 
our allies give us financial assistance in this war? Has anyone been 
asking them to divvy it up, to help pay the financial cost, or do we 
plan to shoulder it all?
  Do we have the resources to care for our injured and sick veterans 
when they return from Iraq? Are our hospitals in this country prepared 
for that event?
  Will there be other consequences to a war with Iraq?
  How will the war against Iraq affect the fight against terrorism? How 
many of us will feel safer here in this country at night, when the 
shades of evening fall? How many of us will feel safer, once an attack 
against Iraq is launched? Will National Guard troops be removed from 
important homeland security missions in the United States?
  If we act without the approval of the international community, what 
happens to the international cooperation in the war on terror we worked 
so hard to foster after 9/11?
  How will a war between the United States and Iraq affect regional 
stability in the Middle East?
  What will we do if Iraq attacks Israel? Can we persuade Israel to 
stay out of the war, or will we just stand by and watch them join in 
the fighting?
  Are we putting more moderate regimes in the Middle East at risk, like 
Jordan, or Pakistan, which already has nuclear weapons. If a more 
radical government takes over in Pakistan, are we prepared to act there 
as well?
  What happens after the war?
  Who will govern a defeated Iraq?
  How long will our troops be expected to occupy Iraq?
  Do we expect Iraqis to rise up against Saddam Hussein, or take arms 
against us?
  What plans do we have to prevent Iraq from breaking up and descending 
into civil war?
  How can we contain the instability that will likely result in the 
north of Iraq that may threaten Turkey, our friend and NATO ally? Are 
we giving any thought to this? Is anybody in the administration giving 
thoughts to this question?
  In his weekend radio address, the president told us that:

     should force be required to bring Saddam to account, the 
     United States will work with other nations to help the Iraqi 
     people rebuild and form a just government.

  What does he mean by that? Is the President advocating a new Marshall 
Plan for the Middle East? Are the American people ready to make that 
kind of long-term regional commitment?
  How much will the American taxpayer pay to rebuild Iraq? How much 
will our allies pay? If the United States should act alone in attacking 
Iraq, can we really expect the rest of the world to help rebuild Iraq 
after the war? Have any other countries committed to assisting in these 
peacekeeping duties? If so, how many? Can we afford to rebuild Iraq and 
Afghanistan at the same time? We may have to rebuild Israel as well.
  I have a lot of questions. The American people have a lot of 
questions. But apparently the American people are not going to be 
asked. They are not going to be given the opportunity to ask their 
questions.
  We are going to be stampeded and rushed pellmell into a showdown 
right here in the Senate and in the House, and in the next few days. 
Why all the hurry? Why are we in such a hurry? Election day is 4 weeks 
away from tomorrow. Wouldn't it be better to go home and listen to the 
people, hear what they have to say, and answer their questions before 
voting on this far-reaching, grave, and troubling question?
  Every one of the questions the American people have is important. 
Without better answers from the President, we will only be getting part 
of the story, which is a dangerous position for Congress to be in as we 
prepare to vote on a war resolution this week or next week.
  It is a sad thing that the elected representatives of the American 
people are being asked to vote on this troubling question before the 
election.
  But the administration is not giving us meaningful answers to these 
questions. All we are getting are vague threats and political pressure 
from the White House. The President has not backed up his case against 
Iraq with a consistent justification based on clear reason and 
evidence. When the President and his advisers are pressed for clarity, 
they have responded with evasive and confusing references to the 
dangers of terrorism which they now seem to think has more to do with 
Saddam Hussein than Osama bin Laden. Defense Secretary Rumsfeld 
revealed that recently when he told the Senate Armed Services 
Committee:

       I suggest that any who insist on perfect evidence are back 
     in the 20th century and still thinking in pre-9-11 terms.

  In other words, it is just too hard for them to answer all of these 
questions, so Congress should just hand everything over to the 
President, and he will determine by himself what is ``necessary and 
appropriate'' when the time comes. Until then, the administration will 
provide Congress and the American people with very little information.
  We need to know this information, and we need to know it now, before 
we are pressured into making a hasty decision about whether to send the 
sons and daughters of Americans to war in a foreign land; namely, Iraq.
  The President's military doctrine will give him a free hand to 
justify almost any military action with unsubstantiated allegations and 
arbitrary risk assessments, and Congress is about to rubberstamp that 
doctrine and simply step out of the way.
  I cannot understand why much of the leadership of this Congress has 
bought into the administration's political pressure. Congress will be 
out of the business of making any decisions about war, and the voice of 
the people will quickly be drowned out by the White House beating the 
drums of war.
  There is no need for Congress to underwrite the President's new 
military

[[Page 19207]]

doctrine. If the United States uses force against Iraq, then Congress 
can provide the President with enough authority to act decisively in 
Iraq. Any further actions the President wants to take should be decided 
on a case-by-case basis. We should not get carried away by all of the 
war rhetoric and turn this Iraq resolution into a blank check for the 
President to enforce some vague new doctrine in every corner of the 
Middle East or the world beyond. Granting him such broad power would 
not only set a dangerous international precedent but would severely 
undermine our own constitutional system of checks and balances.
  Some say that the process laid out in the Constitution will be 
satisfied once Congress votes on whether to authorize war. But Congress 
must not grant the use of force authorization without a full 
understanding of the consequences. We will be voting to decide whether 
we will allow the President to declare war at his convenience for an 
unlimited period of time. That does not satisfy the Constitution. After 
all, the President has repeatedly said he has not decided whether we 
must go to war.
  Do we want to just give the President and all future Presidents an 
authorization for war that they can put in their hip pockets, to be 
pulled out whenever it is convenient? That is not the course of action 
worthy of the greatness the Founding Fathers expected when they created 
the legislative branch.
  We should not have this vote on the issue for war or for peace before 
the Congress has answers to these questions. The President, when he 
speaks to the Nation tonight, must provide real answers to these 
questions that the American people are asking.
  Madam President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia.
  Mr. WARNER. Madam President, I say to my valued friend and colleague 
on the Senate Armed Services Committee that I thought we had an 
excellent debate on Friday afternoon, at which time a number of the 
points the Senator from West Virginia raised today were discussed. But 
I believe the administration has worked diligently in consultation with 
the Congress--most particularly the appropriate committees--the Senate 
Armed Services Committee, on which my colleague from West Virginia and 
I are privileged to serve, and also our colleague from Georgia, as well 
as the Foreign Relations Committee.
  These questions, I believe, and the information that can be made 
available are and perhaps will again in the next day or so be made 
available to the Congress. I know I have, I say to my good friend from 
West Virginia, pressed the administration to see whether or not further 
information that now has classification can be given.
  I and other Members of the Senate were back with our constituencies 
this weekend. I had about five meetings with my constituents at various 
places, and foremost in their minds is the seriousness of this 
situation we face with Saddam Hussein and his regime which possesses 
these weapons of mass destruction.
  I believe this debate is evolving. I believe the Congress is in 
possession of those facts to justify a vote on the resolution, which 
Senator Lieberman, Senator Bayh, Senator McCain, and I have drawn up in 
accordance with consultations with the White House and the leadership.
  I thought we got off to a good start on Friday. I thank my colleague 
for the opportunity to debate him--and we do very vigorously, and 
undoubtedly we will continue. But I believe, if I might say 
respectfully to my colleague from West Virginia, it is a good, strong 
record for the Congress and the American people. And there may be 
additional facts forthcoming. Certainly, we should await the 
President's message to the Nation and to the world with great respect 
because he has time and time again said war is the last option, the use 
of force is the last option. He pursued diligently diplomatic means 
before, not only with the United Nations but in one-to-one meetings 
himself, and the Secretary of State with the heads of state and 
governments in a great many nations.
  I believe progress has been made in all directions.
  I thank the Chair. I thank my colleague. I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Georgia.
  Mr. CLELAND. Madam President, we as Members of the Senate, are now 
being asked by the Commander in Chief to make the most serious decision 
we can make: the decision to authorize him potentially to send our 
young American men and women in the American military into harm's way. 
When I was a young man in the mid-1960s, the U.S. Congress authorized 
the use of force against North Vietnam, and I volunteered to fight in 
that war. Three times since I came to the Senate--on Iraq in 1998, on 
Kosovo in 1999, and then last year on al-Qaida and international 
terrorism--I have been asked by the Commander in Chief to authorize the 
use of military force to achieve our Nation's objectives, and all three 
times I voted to authorize the use of force. This is now the fourth 
occasion I have been asked to give my consent to such action, and each 
time I have thought back to the words of one who occupied the same seat 
in the Senate I now have the privilege to hold, Dick Russell. Senator 
Russell said:

       While it is a sound policy to have limited objectives, we 
     should not expose our men to unnecessary hazards to life and 
     limb in pursuing them. As for me, my fellow Americans, I 
     shall never knowingly support a policy of sending even a 
     single American boy overseas to risk his life in combat 
     unless the entire civilian population and wealth of our 
     country--all that we have and all that we are--is to bear a 
     commensurate responsibility in giving him the fullest support 
     and protection of which we are capable.

  That was a marvelous quote by Senator Russell in the 1960s.
  While we need to update Senator Russell's statement to encompass the 
young women who now also put themselves into harm's way when we go to 
war, I think it stands the test of time very well and speaks to us all 
now as we contemplate our second declaration of war in the last 12 
months. I believe its counsel of limited ends but sufficient means is 
sage advice now, as it was when first uttered under the shadow of the 
Vietnam war.
  The leading military analyst of the Vietnam War, the late Col. Harry 
Summers, wrote in his excellent book, ``On Strategy: The Vietnam War in 
Context'':

       The first principle of war is the principle of The 
     Objective. It is the first principle because all else flows 
     from it . . . How to determine military objectives that will 
     achieve or assist in achieving the political objectives of 
     the United States is the primary task of the military 
     strategist, thus the relationship between military and 
     political objectives is critical. Prior to any future 
     commitment of U.S. military forces our military leaders must 
     insist that the civilian leadership provide tangible, 
     obtainable political goals. The political objective cannot 
     merely be a platitude but must be stated in concrete terms. 
     While such objectives may very well change during the course 
     of the war, it is essential that we begin with an 
     understanding of where we intend to go. As Clausewitz said, 
     we should not ``take the first step without considering the 
     last.'' In other words, we (and perhaps, more important, the 
     American people) need to have a definition of ``victory.''

  Colonel Summers continues:

       There is an inherent contradiction between the military and 
     its civilian leaders on this issue. For both domestic and 
     international political purposes the civilian leaders want 
     maximum flexibility and maneuverability and are hesitant to 
     fix on firm objectives. The military on the other hand need 
     just such a firm objective as early as possible in order to 
     plan and conduct military operations.

  Since we are indeed being asked to authorize the commitment of U.S. 
military forces, it is our responsibility--I would say it is our 
obligation--as the civilian leadership to provide our Armed Forces with 
``tangible, obtainable political goals.'' In other words, we have to 
define now, before the fighting starts, what the objective is.
  It is crystal clear to me what the appropriate, achievable, 
internationally supported and sanctioned objective is at the present 
time and in the present case: not simply the admission of weapons 
inspectors but the verified destruction of Saddam Hussein's store of 
weapons of mass destruction. This is

[[Page 19208]]

the matter which makes the Iraqi regime a danger requiring 
international attention beyond that which is afforded to the all too 
numerous other regimes which oppress their own people, or threaten 
regional peace, or fail to fulfill their international obligations. It 
is the objective which President Bush has been increasingly centered on 
in his calls for action by the UN. For example, in his September 26 
meeting with congressional leaders, the President put it very well. He 
said:

       We are engaged in a deliberate and civil and thorough 
     discussion. We are moving toward a strong resolution . . . 
     And by passing this resolution we'll send a clear message to 
     the world and to the Iraqi regime: the demands of the U.N. 
     Security Council must be followed. The Iraqi dictator must be 
     disarmed. These requirements will be met, or they will be 
     enforced.

  And this objective, the disarming of Saddam Hussein, is the objective 
which this Senate, this Congress is prepared to overwhelmingly endorse 
as we close ranks behind the President.
  Adoption of the force resolution authorization will satisfy our 
obligations to make it clear to the international community that 
America stands united in its determination to rid the world of Iraq's 
weapons of mass destruction. And it will fulfill our responsibility to 
our military and our service men and women to provide a tangible, 
militarily obtainable objective. But it will not discharge this 
Congress of all responsibility with respect to our policy on Iraq.
  In retrospect, it seems to me that the real failure of Congress in 
the Vietnam war was not so much passage of the open-ended Gulf of 
Tonkin resolution by near unanimous margins in both Houses--based as it 
was on what we now regard as very dubious information supplied by the 
executive branch and what those Senators and Representatives had to 
take at face value--but its subsequent failure for too many years to 
exercise its constitutional responsibilities as that authorization lead 
to a cost and level of commitment that few, if any, foresaw at the 
time. I would note that Senator Russell actually got the following 
language added to the Gulf of Tonkin resolution itself:

       This resolution shall expire when the President shall 
     determine that the peace and security of the area is 
     reasonably assured by international conditions created by 
     action of the United Nations, or otherwise, except that it 
     may be terminated earlier by concurrent resolution of the 
     Congress.

  Our duty, and the duty of this Congress and its successors, to our 
Nation's security and to our service men and women with respect to Iraq 
will not end merely with the passage of the pending resolution. We have 
a constitutional and moral responsibility to continue to review the 
evolving situation and to ask the hard questions. I did so on each of 
the three previous occasions when I have supported an authorization of 
the use of military force. I asked those questions on Iraq in 1998, on 
Kosovo in 1999, and then last year on al-Qaida and Osama bin Laden and 
the international terrorism war. And I will do so again with respect to 
Iraq.
  After the 1990-1991 gulf war and after the final end of the cold war, 
then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Colin Powell, propounded a 
list of six questions which he believed must be addressed before we 
commit to a military intervention:

       Is the political objective important, clearly defined, and 
     well understood?
       Second, have all nonviolent means been tried and failed?
       Additionally, will military force actually achieve the 
     objective?
       What will be the cost?
       Have the gains and risks been thoroughly analyzed?
       And finally, after the intervention, how will the situation 
     likely evolve and what will the consequences be?

  I have already discussed the first question, the mission, and to the 
extent we focus on disarmament, I believe we satisfy Colin Powell's 
first criterion. The second, as to nonmilitary means, is being asked 
right now, at the United Nations, at Vienna, and in other world 
capitals. And while what the President calls a ``decade of deception'' 
by Iraq must make one very skeptical about the possibility for a 
satisfactory diplomatic resolution, I believe we should and must give 
it one final chance before considering the military option. As to the 
effectiveness of military force, since the President has not made any 
final decisions, he says, as to what kind of military operation, if 
any, will be undertaken, it is premature to make a firm determination, 
but in principle, given the outstanding capabilities of our Armed 
Forces, and what will hopefully be a well-defined mission, I believe we 
can answer in the affirmative. So far, so good.
  But when we turn to the final three of General Powell's questions 
that he asked years ago, we see the need for some serious and sustained 
attention not only by the administration but by the Congress as well.
  What will be the cost? And here we need to factor in not only the 
cost in terms of the immediate military operation, but also potential 
costs of what could be a very long-term occupation and nation-building 
phase. Among the many reasons we need to actively seek to build as 
large an international coalition as possible behind whatever we 
eventually undertake in Iraq is to help with the aftermath. I want to 
single out the leadership of my friends and colleagues from across the 
aisle, Senators Lugar and Hagel, in calling the country's and the 
Senate's attention to the importance of this aspect of our Iraq policy.
  And what about the cost for our economy? The mere threat of war has 
sent oil prices upward and caused shudders on Wall Street. What will a 
full blown war do?
  Have the gains and risks been thoroughly analyzed? And after the 
intervention, how will the situation likely evolve and what will be the 
consequences? These two are closely related in that, in my view, the 
long-term consequences have been the least discussed part of the 
equation thus far. If, as some believe, the consequence of a U.S. 
invasion of Iraq will be a united, democratic Iraq which can serve as a 
``role model'' for the rest of the Arab world. Maybe, but such an 
outcome would not only fly in the face of Iraq's entire history since 
being created out of a British mandate at the end of the First World 
War but would appear to be contrary to much of what we have seen in the 
aftermath of other recent U.S. interventions, including most recently 
in Afghanistan. Perhaps, most importantly, we need to make absolutely 
certain that whatever we do in Iraq does not distract or detract from 
the war we authorized 12 months ago, our war on terrorism, which 
remains, in my view, job No. 1, mission No. 1, objective No. 1, one for 
our national security policy.
  So these are the kinds of questions I will be asking, and I hope I 
will be joined by colleagues from both sides of the aisle in asking, as 
we move forward.
  It now appears the Senate may have at least three alternatives to 
consider as we move forward on authorizing force against Saddam 
Hussein: the Biden-Lugar-Hagel resolution; a Levin resolution; and the 
resolution endorsed by the President, the House leadership and a 
bipartisan group of Senators. I certainly wish to pay tribute to all of 
the Senators involved in crafting all of these alternatives. Without 
exception, they are acting out of conscience and conviction in 
promoting our national security. And I believe most Senators share the 
views that diplomacy is preferential to force, and that proceeding with 
the input and support of the international community, including the 
United Nations, is far better and more effective than going it alone.
  I will be supporting the resolution backed by the President and 
opposing the alternatives because I believe it is imperative that we 
now speak with one voice to Saddam Hussein, to the entire international 
community and, most importantly, to our servicemen and women. A strong, 
bipartisan vote for the pending resolution will strengthen the 
President's hand in his efforts to get the international community to 
step up to the plate and deal effectively with the threat posed by 
Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, and give the diplomats one last 
chance to secure Saddam Hussein's final, unconditional surrender of 
those weapons, as he has pledged since 1991.
  The objective of our policy against Saddam Hussein should be a regime 
of

[[Page 19209]]

unfettered inspections leading to full disarmament of Iraq's weapons of 
mass destruction. If diplomacy fails, the military objective must be 
the complete destruction of such weapons. Regime change may come but, 
because of the large costs and massive uncertainties this will 
inevitably produce, this should be the last resort, not the first.
  We must not repeat the most disturbing display of partisanship with 
respect to national security to have occurred in the time I have served 
in the Congress. I am referring to the extremely disturbing spectacle 
of disunity and irresolution displayed by the House of Representatives 
on April 28, 1999 when, with American servicemen and women already in 
combat against Milosevic and Serbia, the House cast a series of votes 
that: prohibited the deployment of ground forces, which the President 
had never asked for; defeated an attempt to remove US forces; and most 
dismaying of all, on a tie vote of 213-213, defeated the Senate-passed 
resolution authorizing the very air operations and missile strikes 
which were even then underway. What kind of message was that to send 
our Armed Forces personnel, or our NATO allies or Milosevic?
  I implore the Senate to pull together behind the one resolution 
endorsed by the President, by the bipartisan House leadership and by a 
bipartisan group of Senators. That resolution affirms the importance of 
working in concert with other nations, gives preference to a diplomatic 
over military solution, focuses attention where it should be on 
disarming Saddam Hussein, seeks to ensure that we not be diverted from 
fighting the war on terrorism, and provides for the ongoing and 
Constitutional role of the Congress as events unfold in our policy 
toward Iraq. I urge a strong and bipartisan vote in favor of the 
resolution.
  God Bless our country and the young men and women who serve in 
uniform.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Rockefeller). The Senator from Virginia.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I wonder if I might ask my very valued 
friend and colleague a question or two.
  With his indulgence, I would like to make a few preliminary comments. 
First and foremost is that we have shared for some years now a strong 
friendship and strong working relationship, primarily through his 
service on the Senate Armed Services Committee. There has been no 
Senator who has been more mindful of the needs of the men and women of 
the Armed Forces than our colleague from Georgia. I felt his remarks 
today were exceedingly well taken, and in particular the need for a 
strengthened resolution here in the Congress, House and Senate 
together, acting on a resolution which is clear in its terms, in such a 
way that there be no daylight, no perceived or actual difference 
between the legislative bodies of our Government--the Congress, the 
Senate and the House, and the Executive, the Commander in Chief, the 
President. I commend him on that point and share it.
  In previous days on this floor, most particularly on Friday, I have 
said that repeatedly. That is the key, the arch of this whole debate is 
the need to have unity of the two branches of Government.
  I was also drawn to his excellent analysis of what we call the Powell 
doctrine, enunciated by General Powell during his period as Chairman of 
the Joint Chiefs. It is interesting today, of course, in his role as 
Secretary of State and in his testimony before the Foreign Relations 
Committee here in the Senate, those criteria he set down are basically 
the criteria he follows today as he represents this Nation on behalf of 
the President and all others in the United Nations and in his constant 
series of meetings with heads of state and government in an effort to 
build a coalition much like that which was built by the first President 
Bush in 1991.
  The Senator from Georgia hit on the key part of the formula of 
Secretary Powell: What is the cost? And he quite properly enunciated 
some concerns and areas in there.
  The question I ask is the question that has to be asked: What is the 
cost if we don't act now, act as we are doing; namely, through the 
United Nations, trying to exhaust all diplomatic means, act as we are 
now acting in consultation with the heads of state and government in 
order to build a coalition, and, as I understand it, supporting in some 
way the writing of a new resolution to be considered by the Security 
Council which would enable a new inspection regime, this time with 
clear absolute authority, no equivocation whatsoever about the 
authority of those going in to perform it and the consequences? 
Hopefully that resolution would be forthcoming, spelling out the 
consequences of the failure of Saddam Hussein to accept the resolution 
and indicate cooperation.
  As my colleague knows, cooperation is essential in discharging any 
inspection regime. So that is where we are now.
  What would be the cost, had our President not taken the initiative 
here in the past months to bring to the very forefront of the entire 
world the problem facing liberty and freedom with the potential of 
weapons of mass destruction being made night and day by Saddam Hussein 
in amounts far exceeding anything he would ever need to defend a 
sovereign nation?
  What is the cost, had we not elevated this debate, had we not gone to 
the U.N., had not the Congress been asked by the President to have a 
resolution? What is your estimate of the cost? What would be the course 
of action for the world to take?
  Mr. CLELAND. I thank the Senator for those kind words. In terms of 
the Powell doctrine, I had a chance to listen to it up front and close 
when I encountered him as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the 
Pentagon. We had a long discussion about being fellow Vietnam veterans, 
about what we learned out of that war, and how he approached the world 
now as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs.
  I can remember two elements to the Powell doctrine. The first is 
sometimes overlooked. The first should be how to use the American 
military to stay out of war and, if we do get in it, win quickly. The 
second part of the Powell doctrine is the doctrine of superior force, 
what Nimitz called in the Second World War in the Pacific ``superior 
upon the point of contact.''
  I am delighted we have a Secretary of State who understands the power 
of the first, which is using the American military to stay out of war. 
I think that is step one for me in the Powell doctrine. Step two is 
obviously if diplomacy fails, use superior force to accomplish your 
objective. In many ways, we have been acting since 1991. We have had 
Iraq under Operation Northern Watch and Southern Watch. We are covering 
40 percent of Iraqi territory as we speak, we have a naval blockade, 
and we have sanctions, so we have not been inactive since 1991.
  What is the status of his weapons of mass destruction, which is the 
focus of this entire debate? We really don't know, since the U.N. 
inspectors were kicked out about 4 years ago, where we stand in that 
regard. That poses a question and a threat. We know he has biological 
and chemical weapons, and he is working on a nuclear weapon. So that 
poses great danger to the Middle East, our allies, Western Europe, and 
potentially to us. Therefore, I think it is appropriate for the U.S. 
Senate to support, and the Congress to support, a resolution 
authorizing the President to take all necessary means, including to use 
force, to back up the original 1991 U.N. resolution authorizing 
disarmament of Saddam Hussein and his weapons of mass destruction. For 
me, that is the political objective and the military objective.
  Mr. WARNER. The Senator also made reference to the period of the 
Clinton administration when President Clinton, again, in consultation 
with the Congress, acted on the seriousness of the issues of Saddam 
Hussein after he kicked out the inspectors and defied all 16 
resolutions. We in the Senate acted, and I am going to read the 
resolution we adopted in the Senate:

       Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
     United States of America in Congress assembled, That the 
     Government of Iraq is in material and unacceptable breach

[[Page 19210]]

     of its international obligations, and therefore the President 
     is urged to take appropriate action, in accordance with the 
     Constitution and relevant laws of the United States, to bring 
     Iraq into compliance with its international obligations.

  Both the Senator from Georgia and I supported it, am I not correct?
  Mr. CLELAND. That is correct. I voted for that resolution in 1998. At 
one point, the resolution did not authorize the American forces to 
involve themselves in a regime change. In this resolution we are 
considering now, we are considering using American forces to not only 
order Saddam Hussein to comply with the 1991 resolution in terms of 
disarmament, there is an ``or else'' clause that says the President can 
use force as well.
  Mr. WARNER. As my colleague, I assume, agrees with me, whoever is 
President of the United States--be it President Clinton or now 
President George Bush--has the inherent power to utilize the Armed 
Forces of our Nation when he deems there is a threat to our security. 
That, of course, is the essence of the debate we are undertaking now. 
So when I read the clause where the Congress said ``therefore the 
President is urged to take appropriate action, in accordance with the 
Constitution and relevant laws of the United States,'' to me, that 
implies a recitation of what we all know since the very first 
President--he has the authority to use force, if he deems it necessary, 
to bring Iraq into compliance with its international obligation.
  I wonder if the Senator would agree with this Senator one thing that 
has changed since this resolution is the situation in Iraq has worsened 
in the sense Saddam Hussein has had these years to proceed with his 
scheme of building weapons of mass destruction, and I think the open 
evidence shows he has achieved it in terms of the biological, and he 
has achieved it in terms of the chemical. With respect to the nuclear 
weapons, I believe the agreed-upon set of facts is he is doing 
everything he can to complete a program. There is a difference of 
opinion as to the time within which he can complete a program to give 
him a nuclear weapon.
  So, in my judgment, what has changed since 1998 is the situation has 
gotten worse and more threatening from Saddam Hussein. Does my 
colleague have a view in concurrence with the Senator from Virginia?
  Mr. CLELAND. Two points. First, the 1998 resolution, which I 
supported, the Senator from Virginia supported, and most of us 
supported, called for regime change but did not authorize the use of 
American military force. This resolution is different because I believe 
the situation is different, as the Senator pointed out. The situation 
is we really don't know the exact status of the biological and chemical 
capability of Saddam Hussein to wage warfare on his neighbors, our 
allies, our friends in the Middle East, and on us. Therefore, the 4 
years the inspectors have not been there gives us great pause and great 
concern.
  Therefore, our first step should be access to those military sites, 
those weapons of mass destruction sites, and the destruction of those 
weapons of mass destruction and complete disarmament according to the 
1991 resolution. It is worth, in my opinion, authorizing the use of 
military force to accomplish that objective.
  Mr. WARNER. I thank my colleague very much. I have enjoyed his 
observations. I respect him very much, as he bears the scars of a brave 
soldier on behalf of freedom while defending this country.
  Mr. President, to conclude our colloquy, I want to read a brief 
statement that was given by President Clinton at the time of this 
resolution:

       In the next century, the community of nations may see more 
     and more the very kind of threat Iraq poses now: a rogue 
     state with weapons of mass destruction, ready to use them or 
     provide them to terrorists, drug traffickers, or organized 
     criminals, who travel the world among us unnoticed. If we 
     fail to respond today, Saddam and all those who would follow 
     in his footsteps will be emboldened tomorrow by the knowledge 
     that they can act with impunity--even in the face of a clear 
     message from the United Nations Security Council and clear 
     evidence of a weapons of mass destruction program.

  Mr. President, I see others on the floor.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Utah is recognized.
  Mr. BENNETT. Mr. President, all I know is what I read in the 
newspapers. Based on what I do know about public policy and what I read 
in the newspapers, I would be very frightened if all I knew was what I 
read in the newspapers because newspapers often get things wrong. It 
has been interesting to me, as we have had the buildup to this 
discussion in the Senate about Iraq, there have been a number of very 
thoughtful pieces written that have appeared in the newspapers, and I 
wish to draw on some of those and quote from some of them at length 
here today.
  It so happens that both of the pieces I will use today appeared in 
the Washington Post, but there have also been useful pieces in the New 
York Times and the Wall Street Journal.
  Before I get to that, I want to describe a conversation I had once as 
a younger man that has been an absolute paradigm conversation in my 
understanding of politics.
  I was having lunch with an old friend, a very experienced political 
hand, a man who had once served President Eisenhower as a close member 
of his staff. We were discussing a certain candidate for President.
  I said, somewhat improperly, because it was rather arrogant for me to 
do this: Is this candidate smart enough to be President of the United 
States?
  My old friend answered immediately. He said: Of course not. Nobody 
is. Then he went on to explain.
  As I say, he was a man who had been at Eisenhower's elbow during some 
of the most significant decisions of our time, and he made this point. 
He said: Every truly Presidential decision is so loaded down with 
unknowable consequences, with unforeseen possibilities, and 
unforeseeable challenges that no truly Presidential decision is ever 
made on the basis of intellect. It is made on the basis of instinct.
  He mentioned this same candidate, and he said: He has good instincts, 
and you can back him with a clear conscience.
  I have thought about that ever since that conversation, and I have 
realized the wisdom of it. If difficult decisions could be made by 
smart people and resolved, they would be resolved before they got to 
the President of the United States because any President in either 
party has plenty of smart people around him who can figure things out 
and come to a neat, tidy, absolutely defensible conclusion. But those 
decisions that do not lend themselves to neat and tidy and absolutely 
defensible conclusions are the ones that ultimately end up on the 
President's desk and are ultimately made, as my old friend said, on 
instinct, out of the gut, rather than intellect out of the analysis.
  I remember a President who many people thought was lacking in 
intellectual candle power, who made a very momentous decision. His name 
was Harry Truman. He described how he was at his mother-in-law's home 
for Sunday dinner back in Missouri when the phone rang. He went to the 
entry hall of that old home where the phone was kept--showing how long 
ago this really was. There was no black box following him around. There 
was no communications apparatus with instant ties to the White House, 
just a phone in the entry hall where the phone used to be put in the 
days when there was only one phone per house, and that would be in a 
central location.
  He answered the phone. It was Dean Acheson, who told him the North 
Koreans had just started across the border into South Korea. President 
Truman said: We have to stop the--expletives deleted.
  In later years, he was asked to outline his decisionmaking analysis 
of the decision to hold the line in North Korea, and he told of the 
phone call and said: My decisionmaking analysis was that one sentence 
when I told Dean Acheson: We have to stop the--expletives deleted. He 
did not think about it any more than that. That came straight out of 
his gut. And it was Harry Truman's gut that made

[[Page 19211]]

him one of the Presidents we now revere as one of the greatest of the 
past century.
  This decision is about going to war in Iraq or about, putting it more 
properly, giving the President authorization to move ahead with force 
if at some point it becomes clear to him that is what we should do. It 
is in the category of those truly Presidential decisions.
  As I listen to the debate on the floor, the questions being asked, 
the analysis being demanded, the effort being made to come up with a 
clear set of tidy pros and cons that can then be weighed on a balance 
sheet or an accounting statement and then a carefully crisp decision 
made on the basis of all of that evidence, I go back to my conversation 
with my friend. We do not know. No one knows what will be the situation 
in Iraq if we attack after it is over. We do not know whether the 
Middle East will be a more beneficent place or a more malevolent place 
if that attack takes place, and no one does.
  I can find experts who will tell us this would be the very best thing 
we could possibly do, and that the Middle East will be much more 
peaceful, and that liberty will be on the march if we just stand firm. 
Out of the newspapers we can find plenty of columnists who will tell us 
that.
  I can find other experts who will say this is the greatest disaster 
we would possibly bring upon the Middle East, and that if we attack 
Iraq, we will unleash a whole Pandora's box of problems. The Arab 
street will rise up, and America will be hated for 100 years. There are 
plenty of columnists in the newspapers who will tell us that.
  I can find experts who will say: Weapons of mass destruction will be 
used against Israel if we move ahead against Iraq; that there will be 
biological and chemical attacks not only against Israel but against 
American installations everywhere; that American multinational 
companies will become the targets of biological and chemical attacks; 
and that all of this can be averted if we just continue the 
discussions. I can find plenty of columnists and people in the 
newspapers who will tell us that.
  Then there are those who say: If we do not act, we will so embolden 
Saddam Hussein and all the other dictators of the area that they will 
never move in a peaceful direction; we will have inevitable war, and it 
will be many times worse than anything that would be triggered by 
action taken now. Again, in the newspapers, I can find plenty of 
columnists who will tell us that.
  So this is a truly Presidential decision, and it will be made not in 
George Bush's head or in the heads of those around him--Dick Cheney, 
Colin Powell, Don Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice, brilliant people all; 
they stack up their degrees, they stack up their accomplishments in the 
world, and this is as glittering an array of talent as any President 
has ever assembled to advise him on foreign policy matters--but the 
ultimate decision will be made in the President's gut because this is a 
truly Presidential decision fraught with so many unknowable 
consequences and possible side effects that no one, no matter how 
smart, can accurately analyze them in advance and come to a neat and 
tidy and firm conclusion.
  I take some comfort in an analysis that has been made of what I would 
call the long-term and big-picture question, a big-picture question 
that perhaps can be analyzed a little better than the specifics of 
whether or not we move ahead with force in Iraq. I refer first to a 
piece that appeared in the Washington Post written by Jackson Diehl 
entitled ``Bush's Foreign Policy First--But no one seems to notice--
even at the White House.'' That is the subhead.
  The ``foreign policy first'' that Mr. Diehl is talking about is the 
fact that the Bush administration, for the first time since the cold 
war, has laid down a coherent doctrine and strategy with respect to 
America's role in the post-cold war world.
  We all sat in the House Chamber 10 days after the attack, perhaps a 
week or so after the attack, on September 11, and we heard President 
Bush deliver a fabulous speech. It had some of the most dramatic 
rhetoric I expect to ever hear in my lifetime, and it was the finest 
Presidential speech I have ever heard in my lifetime. As I stepped away 
from that speech and the emotion of the moment and analyzed it, 
realized President Bush had, in fact, for the first time in the post-
cold war world, laid down a vision of that world and America's role in 
it. That speech was more than a rhetorical masterpiece. It was a 
serious policy statement of where America should be.
  That has been fleshed out in a 34-page statement of foreign policy 
issued by the White House. That is what Jackson Diehl is referring to 
when he says Bush's foreign policy first--the first statement of the 
situation post-cold war as seen by an American administration looking 
at it in toto.
  Quoting from Mr. Diehl's presentation, he says:

       For a decade U.S. internationalists bemoaned the absence of 
     any coherent policy for engaging the world after the fall of 
     Communism. The Clinton administration, like the Bush team 
     before it, was excoriated for stumbling from crisis to crisis 
     and for consistently making bad judgments about where and how 
     to use America's sole-superpower strength. Now, at last, the 
     internationalists have gotten what they wanted, and the 
     reaction of too many of them is to be aghast.

  Continuing the quote:

       The national security doctrine issued this month by the 
     White House packs into just 34 pages everything the foreign 
     policy of the 1990s lacked. It begins by embracing two facts 
     that have been observed since 1991, but hard for a democratic 
     and sometimes insular society to accept: that America has 
     unmatched and unprecedented power in the world and therefore 
     no choice but to shape the international order; and that it 
     faces threats that are utterly different but in some ways 
     more dangerous than the threats from the old Soviet Union.

  I think that is exactly what the President was saying in his 
statement to the Joint Session of Congress. We must face the fact that 
we have power unmatched in history and, therefore, cannot abdicate our 
responsibility to shape the international order and, two, we must face 
the fact that we still live in a dangerous world and we are ironically 
more vulnerable now than we were before.
  Mr. Diehl goes on, after talking about the situation surrounding the 
word ``unilateral,'' or ``presumptive action,'' and he makes this 
point:

       American presidents have been engaging in unilateral and 
     preemptive military actions all along--most recently in 
     Panama, Grenada and Haiti, and in Iraq following the 1998 
     expulsion of the inspectors. And what the new policy actually 
     says is this: Because terrorists and rogue dictators now have 
     the potential to do enormous harm to Americans with weapons 
     of mass destruction and are not easily deterred, it may be 
     necessary to strike at some before they can act. Should we 
     again sit still if a future al-Qaida operates large terrorist 
     training camps in a future Afghanistan? Rice's document 
     treats this question as a matter of common sense, which it 
     is. It also says, sensibly, that preemption is not the answer 
     to all threats--and so far, at least, it hasn't been the 
     legal basis for the White House campaign against Iraq.

  I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed to continue for an 
additional 5 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. The 
Senator may proceed.
  Mr. BENNETT. Jackson Diehl summarizes this way:

       The real heart of the doctrine, the proposition that U.S. 
     strength be wielded to spread liberty throughout the world, 
     has been barely acknowledged by a policy apparatus that 
     continues to cultivate old and new autocratic allies in the 
     Middle East and Asia.

  I ask unanimous consent that the entire article appear at the 
conclusion of my remarks.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  (See Exhibit 1.)
  Mr. BENNETT. Turning to a piece which also appeared in the Washington 
Post written by Bernard Lewis, who is considered by some to be the 
ultimate authority on conflicts in the Middle East, it is entitled: 
``Targeted By a History of Hatred--The United States Is Now the 
Unquestioned Leader of the Free World, Also Known as the Infidels.'' 
That is an interesting tie: We are the unquestioned leader of the free 
world, also known in many parts of the world as the infidels.

[[Page 19212]]

  Put that headline against the statement contained in Jackson Diehl's 
summary of the Bush position paper authored primarily by Condoleezza 
Rice, and once again you see the big picture. We do live in a world 
where we are the only superpower. We have the responsibility to do 
something with that, and President Bush and his advisers have now come 
to the conclusion that the ultimate test of how we use our power should 
be how will it ultimately spread liberty throughout the world. That is 
the kind of flag to which I can repair. That is the kind of standard I 
can follow.
  If we were the British in the 1700s and 1800s presiding over the 
world, the grand scheme would be: How can we enhance and increase 
British Imperial power? If we were the Romans when they were the only 
superpower in that portion of the world they cared about, the only big 
picture item would be: How can we secure and extend the power of the 
Roman legions? But as President Bush makes this truly Presidential 
decision out of his gut, he has made it clear that the ultimate 
question he is asking, and we must ask with him, is, How will this 
expand the role of liberty throughout the world? That, as I say, is a 
standard I can follow.
  So I will be voting in favor of the resolution, not because I have 
figured out all of the unknowables and imponderables relating to it and 
not because I am absolutely sure that the Presidential power will be 
used in the right possible way in every possible circumstance. I will 
be doing it because I trust George W. Bush's instincts as outlined as 
clearly as any post-war President has ever outlined America's role in 
the post-war world.
  He will use his power to expand and defend liberty throughout the 
world. He may use it by mistake. He may do things that do not produce 
that result. But that will be his polestar; that should be America's 
polestar; that should be the policy we lay down and hold now for 
generations to come. It resonates with the decision of the Founding 
Fathers when the country was created. It is a worthy position for us to 
take now that the country has become preeminent in the world. Let us 
hope and pray that as we give this President this power it is always 
used to that end.
  I yield the floor.

                             Exhibit No. 1

                      Bush's Foreign Policy First

                           (By Jackson Diehl)

       For a decade U.S. internationalists bemoaned the absence of 
     any coherent policy for engaging the world after the fall of 
     communism. The Clinton administration, like the Bush team 
     before it, was excoriated for stumbling from crisis to crisis 
     and for consistently making bad judgments about where and how 
     to use America's sole-superpower strength. Now, at last, the 
     internationalists have gotten what they wanted--and the 
     reaction of too many of them is to be aghast.
       The national security doctrine issued this month by the 
     White House packs into just 34 pages everything the foreign 
     policy of the 1990s lacked. It begins by embracing two facts 
     that have been obvious since 1991, but hard for a democratic 
     and sometimes insular society to accept: that America has 
     unmatched and unprecedented power in the world and therefore 
     no choice but to shape the international order; and that it 
     faces threats that are utterly different but in some ways 
     more dangerous than the threats from the old Soviet Union.
       The Bush doctrine commits the United States to act 
     aggressively, with others or alone, ``to promote a balance of 
     power that favors freedom.'' The phobias about engaging 
     abroad that paralyzed policy in the '90s, and infuriated the 
     internationalists, are banished. This isn't just the 
     Jacksonian assertion of American interests, though that is 
     surely part of it. There is also a Wilsonian promise to 
     ``bring the hope of democracy, development, free markets and 
     free trade to every corner of the world''--and a Kissingerian 
     strategy of maintaining a ``great power balance'' that 
     decisively favors the United States. The ambition is 
     breathtaking; ``We will work to translate this moment of 
     influence,'' declares the doctrine, ``into decades of peace, 
     prosperity and liberty.'' It is, in short, a bold--and mostly 
     brilliant--synthesis, one that conceivably could cause 
     national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, who executed it, 
     to be remembered as the policymaker who defined a new era.
       The first proof that Rice and her team are on to something 
     is the alarmist reactions that have greeted her paper. 
     Scandalized members of the foreign policy establishment are 
     calling its treatment of preemptive action an unprecedented 
     policy departure that endorses blitzkrieg as the remedy for 
     anti-Americanism. In a chat with National Public Radio, 
     historian Douglas Brinkley claimed that it ``is simply 
     saying, `We do what we want when we feel like it, and we will 
     declare war on anybody if we think they might be declaring 
     war on us.'''
       Policy perestroika usually provokes such first responses. 
     But American presidents have been engaging in unilateral and 
     preemptive military actions all along--most recently in 
     Panama, Grenada and Haiti, and in Iraq following the 1998 
     expulsion of the inspectors. And what the new policy actually 
     says is this: Because terrorists and rogue dictators now have 
     the potential to do enormous harm to Americans with weapons 
     of mass destruction and are not easily deterred, it may be 
     necessary to strike at some before they can act. Should we 
     again sit still if a future al Qaeda operates large terrorist 
     training camps in a future Afghanistan? Rice's document 
     treats this question as ``a matter of common sense,'' which 
     it is. It also says, sensibly, that preemption is not the 
     answer to all threats--and so far, at least, it hasn't been 
     the legal basis for the White House campaign against Iraq.
       That Colin Powell now is negotiating the text of another 
     Security Council resolution on U.N. inspections with Russia, 
     Syria and France points to the real weakness of the Bush 
     doctrine--not that it is too radical but that it lacks the 
     political momentum needed to overcome decades of encrusted 
     old thinking and bureaucratic inertia. It's not just that 
     liberal academics haven't signed on to the new doctrine. 
     Inside the administration, it's hard to find anyone--other 
     than Rice--who subscribes to every part of it. Instead, some 
     push the unilateral offense, some the democratic nation-
     building--and no one quite gets his or her way. In practice, 
     despite all the alarms, the administration's foreign policy, 
     when not entirely paralyzed by internal infighting, mostly 
     follows the old norms.
       George Kannan's theory of containment eventually won over 
     challengers from the right and left, and thus became the 
     consensus doctrine of the Cold War. Will Rice have the same 
     luck? So far preemption is no more than a scary word used to 
     motivate the United Nations--which, at least in the case of 
     Iraq, is perhaps its best use. Meanwhile, the real heart of 
     the doctrine--the proposition that U.S. strength be wielded 
     to spread liberty through the world--has been barely 
     acknowledged by a policy apparatus that continues to 
     cultivate old and new autocratic allies in the Middle East 
     and Asia. Does George Bush really subscribe to the doctrine 
     issued in his name? Ask Hosni Mubarak, or Pervez Musharraf.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia.
  Mr. WARNER. I thank our distinguished colleague for an excellent 
contribution to this debate. He has a remarkable way of tying it to the 
reality of the present day and the present time and also looking toward 
the future. So, again, I thank him for his participation and hope he 
can perhaps return to the floor in the future.
  I ask unanimous consent that following my remarks, an op-ed piece 
that appears today, Monday, October 7, in the Wall Street Journal, 
authored by our distinguished colleague Joe Lieberman, whose name 
appears in the first place on the resolution that is before the Senate, 
be printed in the Record.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  (See Exhibit 1.)
  Mr. WARNER. I read the following excerpt:

       It is time to authorize the use of our military might to 
     enforce the United Nations resolutions, disarm Iraq, and 
     eliminate the ongoing threat to our security, and the 
     world's, posed by Saddam Hussein's rabid regime.

  Later he asks the question, Why now? He replies:

       For more than a decade we have tried everything--diplomacy, 
     sanctions, inspections, limited military action--except war 
     to convince Saddam Hussein to keep the promises he made, and 
     the U.N. endorsed, to end the Gulf War. Those steps have not 
     worked . . .
       So my answer to ``why now?'' is, ``Why not earlier?'' And, 
     of course, that question has new urgency since September 11, 
     2001.

  Further, he quotes from former Secretary of Defense Jim Schlesinger, 
under whom I was privileged to serve as Secretary of the Navy. Senator 
Lieberman states:

       As former secretary of defense Schlesinger recently told 
     the Senate Armed Services Committee, ``Vigorous action in the 
     course of an ongoing conflict hardly constitutes preventive 
     war.''

                               Exhibit 1

              [From the Wall Street Journal, Oct. 7, 2002]

                             Our Resolution

                           (By Joe Lieberman)

       The most fateful and difficult responsibility the 
     Constitution gives to members of

[[Page 19213]]

     Congress is to decide when the president should be authorized 
     to lead the men and women of the U.S. military into war. We 
     are now engaged in such a debate regarding Saddam Hussein's 
     belligerent dictatorship in Iraq.
       Although I disagree with many other aspects of President 
     Bush's foreign and domestic policy, I believe deeply that he 
     is right about Iraq, and that our national security will be 
     strengthened if members of both parties come together now to 
     support the commander-in-chief and our military. That's why I 
     have cosponsored the Senate resolution that was negotiated 
     with the White House. It is time to authorize the use of our 
     military might to enforce U.N. resolution, disarm Iraq, and 
     eliminate the ongoing threat to our security, and the world's 
     posed by Saddam Hussein's rabid regime.


                             responsibility

       Making the case for such action is a responsibility to be 
     shouldered by those of us who have reached these conclusions. 
     If we do so convincingly, not long will the American people 
     and our allies better understand our standards for 
     engagement, but governments around the world who defy the 
     dictates of the U.N. to make weapons of mass destruction or 
     to support terrorists will appreciate how painful the 
     consequences of their brutality and lawlessness can be.
       In that spirit, let me now address a few of the most 
     critical questions my Senate colleagues and many American are 
     asking.
       Why has military action against Saddam become so urgent? 
     Why not give diplomacy and inspections another chance? Why 
     now?
       For more than a decade we have tried everything--diplomacy 
     sanctions, inspections, limited military action--except war 
     to convince Saddam to keep the promises he made, and the U.N. 
     endorsed, to end the Gulf War. Those steps have not worked.
       In 1998, Bob Kerry, John McCain, and I sponsored the Iraq 
     Liberation Act declaring it national policy to change the 
     regime in Baghdad. The act became law, but until recently 
     little has been done to implement it. In the meantime, Saddam 
     has not wavered from his ambition for hegemonic control over 
     the Persian Gulf and the Arab world: He has invested vast 
     amounts of his national treasure in building inventories of 
     biological and chemical weapons and the means to deliver them 
     to targets near and far. Saddam once told his Republican 
     Guard that its national honor would not be achieved until 
     Iraq's arm reached out beyond its borders to ``every point in 
     the Arab homeland.''
       So, my answer to ``Why now?'' is, ``Why not earlier?'' And, 
     of course, that question has new urgency since Sept. 11, 
     2001.
       Won't a war against Iraq slow or stop our more urgent war 
     against terrorism?
       To me, the two are inextricably linked. First, remember 
     that Iraq under Saddam is one of only seven nations in the 
     world to be designated by our State Department as a state 
     sponsor of terrorism, providing aid and training to 
     terrorists who have killed Americans and others. Second, 
     Saddam himself meets the definition of a terrorist--someone 
     who attacks civilians to achieve a political purpose. Third, 
     though the relationship between al Qaeda and Saddam's regime 
     is a subject of intense debate within the intelligence 
     community, we have evidence of meetings between Iraqi 
     officials and leaders of al Qaeda, and testimony that Iraqi 
     agents helped train al Qaeda operatives to use chemical and 
     biological weapons. We also know that al Qaeda leaders have 
     been, and are now, harbored in Iraq.
       Saddam's is the only regime that combines growing 
     stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons and a record of 
     using them with regional hegemonic ambitions and a record of 
     supporting terrorists. If we remove his influence from the 
     Middle East and free the Iraqi people to determine their own 
     destiny, we will transform the politics of the region. That 
     will only advance the war against terrorism, not set it back.
       Why should we launch a strike against a sovereign nation 
     that has not struck us first?
       We should and will soon have a larger debate about the 
     president's new doctrine of pre-emption, but not here and 
     now, because the term is not apt for our current situation. 
     We have been engaged in an ongoing conflict with Saddam's 
     regime ever since the Gulf War began. Every day, British and 
     American aircraft and personnel are enforcing no-fly zones 
     over northern and southern Iraq; the ongoing force of about 
     7,500 American men and women in uniform costs our taxpayers 
     more than $1 billion a year. And this is not casual duty. 
     Saddam's air defense forces have shot at U.S. and British 
     planes 406 times (and counting) in 2002 alone.
       As former Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger recently 
     told the Senate Armed Services Committee, ``Vigorous action 
     in the course of an ongoing conflict hardly constitutes 
     preventive war.''
       Why not have two congressional resolutions, one now 
     encouraging the U.N. to respond to President Bush's call for 
     inspections without limits, and another one later authorizing 
     U.S. military action if the U.N. refuses to act?
       This is sometimes described as the way to stop ``go-it-
     alone'' action by the U.S. unless and until absolutely 
     necessary. But I believe that the best way to encourage 
     forceful U.N. action, so that we never have to ``go it 
     alone,'' is for Congress to unite now in authorizing the 
     president to take military action, if necessary. I am 
     convinced that if we lead decisively, others will come to our 
     side, in the U.N. and after. If we are steadfast in pursuit 
     of our principles, allies in Europe and the Middle East will 
     be with us.
       Why not just authorize the president to take military 
     action to disarm the Iraqis instead of giving him a ``blank 
     check''?
       Our resolution does not give the president a blank check. 
     It authorizes the use of U.S. military power only to ``defend 
     the national security of the United States against the 
     continuing threat posed by Iraq'' and to ``enforce all 
     relevant United Nations Security Council Resolutions 
     regarding Iraq.''
       There are 535 members of Congress who have the 
     constitutional responsibility to authorize American military 
     action, but there is only one commander-in-chief who can 
     carry it out. Having reached the conclusion I have about the 
     clear and present danger Saddam represents to the U.S., I 
     want to give the president a limited but strong mandate to 
     act against Saddam. Five hundred and thirty-five members of 
     Congress cannot wage war; we can only authorize it. The rest 
     is up to the president and our military.


                          a record of strength

       We in Congress have now begun a very serious debate on 
     these questions and others. Each member must act on values, 
     conscience, sense of history and national security. When it 
     is over, I believe there will be a strong majority of 
     senators who will vote for the bipartisan resolution that 
     John Warner, John McCain, Evan Bayh and I have introduced. I 
     am equally confident that a strong majority of Democrats in 
     the Senate will support it. In doing so, they will embrace 
     the better parts of our party's national security legacy of 
     the last half century. From Truman's doctrine to prevent 
     communist expansion to Kennedy's ``quarantine'' of Cuba to 
     prevent Soviet missiles from remaining there, to Bill 
     Clinton's deployment of American forces to the Balkans to 
     stop genocide and prevent a wider war in Europe, Democrats 
     should be proud of our record of strength when it counted the 
     most.
       Each of the Democratic presidents above tried diplomacy, 
     but when it failed, they unleashed America's military forces 
     across the globe to confront tyranny, to stop aggression, and 
     to prevent any more damage to America or Americans. That is 
     precisely what our resolution would empower President Bush to 
     do now.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nevada.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I will use my 15 minutes to speak on the 
Iraq resolution at a subsequent time. I will speak today on something I 
think is extremely important to what we are doing militarily around the 
world; that is, as a result of an article I saw in today's Washington 
Post, and I am sure it is running all over the world.
  Mr. WARNER. Could I ask my colleague, could your very important 
colloquy which I will have with you on this subject appear in a place 
elsewhere in the Record?
  Mr. REID. I want it at this point. Sorry, but I really do. I think 
this is important to what we are doing today, I say to my friend, the 
distinguished Senator and my good friend from Virginia.
  This headline reads: ``Bush Threatens Veto of Defense Bill.''
  I cannot believe the President is involved in this--maybe some of the 
people around him--I cannot believe the President would do this. I 
cannot accept that. I cannot accept George W. Bush, a person I have 
found to be very sensitive to people--I hope my feelings are warranted.
  We have statements from the same article:

       David S.C. Chu, Undersecretary of defense for personnel and 
     readiness, said VA disability compensation is intended not to 
     supplement military pensions.
       ``We're going to rob Peter to pay Paul.''

  He was speaking for the President of the United States on this very 
important issue, saying:

       ``We're going to rob Peter to pay Paul''--``and the 
     question is, should Peter really lose here?''

  This is legislation I authored and others have supported over the 
years to allow military retirees to receive not only their retirement 
benefits from the military but also their disability benefits. That is 
all this is. Somebody who is in the U.S. military, who is disabled, can 
receive that pension in addition to their retirement benefits. The law 
now says you can't. I say that is wrong.
  If you retire from the Department of Energy or Sears & Roebuck and 
have a disability pension from the military,

[[Page 19214]]

you can draw both pensions. Why shouldn't you be able to if you retire 
from the military?
  I am troubled with this administration's opposition of concurrent 
receipt of retirement pay and disability pay for disabled military 
retirees.
  America's veterans have long been denied concurrent receipt based on 
an antiquated law that in effect says if you have 20 years in uniform 
you cannot draw your disability.
  This ``robbing Peter to pay Paul'' troubles me. As we speak today, 
starting at 2:45 today until 2:45 tomorrow, 1,000 World War II veterans 
will die. A number of those have disabilities, and they are entitled to 
receive those disability benefits as a result of their service in the 
military. They are entitled to that. But not legally.
  This law which has passed the Senate on two separate occasions--
passed the House this year--is being threatened by the President. He is 
not going to OK this bill.
  I held a press conference with Senator Warner and Senator Levin last 
year saying they fought a good fight, and we were sorry we could not 
get it done. I will not accept that this year; neither are the veterans 
of this country. I know how dedicated Senator Warner and Senator Levin 
are to the military of this country. Don't let them be bamboozled by 
this administration saying he will veto the bill.
  I dare them to veto the bill based on disability benefits to 
veterans, 1,000 of whom are dying every day, World War II veterans. Not 
all 1,000 will draw benefit. They have exaggerated how man people will 
draw these benefits. But there are some.
  And now I see a proposal in the same article, the distinguished 
Senator from Arizona saying maybe we will compromise and say those who 
have a service-connected disability can draw their benefits.
  If you are in battle--at most, there are 10 percent during a conflict 
with military people on the front lines in combat--if someone gets shot 
and their shoulder is ruined, they should be entitled to the benefits. 
If someone is not in the front lines, but in the back lines, or even in 
America, not over in a foreign country, and they fall off a truck and 
ruin their shoulder, they are entitled to those benefits just like 
someone who was shot. They are doing their best to represent our 
country, and they are just as important. If you did not have those 
people behind the lines, you would not have the people on the front 
lines able to fight.
  Career military retired veterans are the only group of Federal 
retirees required to waive their retirement pay to receive disability. 
Other Federal retirees get both disability and retirement pay.
  Some officials have been quoted in recent newspaper articles stating 
that retirement pay is two pays for the same event. Come on, get real, 
Mr. President. These people say this is doubledipping. These statements 
are simply untrue--or people do not know what they are talking about. 
Military retirement pay and disability compensation are earned from 
entirely different purposes. Therefore, a disabled veteran should be 
allowed to receive both.
  Current law ignores the distinction. Military retired pay is earned 
compensation for the extraordinary demands and sacrifices inherent in a 
military career. It is a reward promised for serving two decades or 
more under conditions that most Americans would find intolerable. When 
a person goes into the military, they are expecting to draw retirement 
pay. When they go in the military, they are not expecting to come out 
disabled. But it happens. Veterans disability compensation is 
recompense for pain, suffering, and loss of earning power caused by a 
service-connected illness or injury. Few retirees can afford to live on 
their retired pay alone, and a severe disability makes the problem 
worse, limiting or denying postservice working life.
  The Presiding Officer of this body is the chairman of the Veterans' 
Affairs Committee, and on a daily basis he deals with the problems, the 
burdens of veterans in our country. No group of people have more 
problems than veterans. Whether you are a World War II veteran, Korean 
war veteran, or a Vietnam veteran, you have problems. We have people 
from all those conflicts, plus others who have served in recent years 
who have disabilities. They are entitled to this. It has passed the 
Senate. It is the will of the people of this country. It is the will of 
the Senate. For, now, the President--his representative, a Mr. Chu--to 
come in and say:

       The President is not going to support this legislation. It 
     would be robbing Peter to pay Paul.

  What is that supposed to mean? We are not going to be able to buy a 
tank or airplane? Instead, we are going to have to give the money to 
somebody like Senator Inouye, who has lost an arm, or Senator Cleland, 
who has lost three limbs?
  A retiree should not have to forfeit part or all of his or her earned 
retired pay as a result of having suffered a service-connected 
disability. There are those who have suggested a compromise for limited 
concurrent receipt to only combat-injured military retirees. I don't 
accept that. Many of our veterans have not been injured in combat, but 
they are no less injured or any less deserving of fair compensation. 
This is simply bowing to the administration's threat of a veto.
  Likewise, the administration's assertion that if the concurrent 
receipt passes, ``1.2 million veterans could qualify'' for extra 
benefits is simply not credible. The Department of Defense and 
Department of Veterans Affairs previously informed Congress about 
550,000 disabled retirees would qualify if the Senate concurrent 
receipt plan were approved. So where do they come up with another 
700,000 people?
  The administration's argument that funding benefits for America's 
disabled veterans would hurt current military personnel is misleading. 
Congress is not cutting funding for those who are now serving our 
country in order to provide benefits for those from previous 
generations who served loyally and made tremendous sacrifices. Congress 
will appropriate the money to pay for that.
  Enacting this concurrent receipt legislation will not cause current 
service members to live in substandard quarters, as some say, in a 
misguided attempt to turn one generation of patriots against another. 
Moreover, at a time when our Nation is calling upon our Armed Forces to 
defend democracy and freedom, we must be careful not to send the wrong 
signal to those in uniform. All who have selected to make their careers 
in the United States military are now facing an additional unknown risk 
in our fight against terrorism. If they were injured, they would be 
forced to forego their earned retired pay in order to receive their VA 
benefits. In effect, they would be paying for their own disability 
benefits from their retirement checks unless this legislation is passed 
overwhelmingly.
  If the President vetoes this bill because of this, how many Senators 
are going to come here and vote to sustain that veto? I don't think 
very many. Who would they rather have on their backs? The President or 
the veterans of this country? I know from Nevada, I would rather have 
the President on my back than those veterans--and they are right.
  At a time when our Nation is calling on our Armed Forces, we need to 
do this. We must send a signal to these brave men and women the 
American people and Government take care of those who make sacrifices 
for our Nation. We have a unique opportunity this year to redress the 
unfair practice of requiring disabled military retirees to fund their 
own disability compensation. It is time for us to show our appreciation 
to these people.
  Finally, the assertion the veterans who would benefit from concurrent 
receipt are already doing well financially is ridiculous. NBC, the 
National Broadcasting System, recently aired three news stories in 
which they documented the dire situation veterans are facing today. The 
Pentagon has acknowledged its studies of retiree income included 
extremely few seriously disabled retirees.

[[Page 19215]]

  For too long America's disabled military retirees have been unjustly 
penalized by concurrent offset, and they are demanding action be taken 
now, not in the future. With such strong bipartisan support on both 
sides of the Congress, these men and women do not understand the 
opposition of the administration. As I say, I hope the President 
doesn't know what is going on.
  Let me say again to my friend, the Senator from Virginia, who is on 
the floor--I have spoken to him today. I have spoken to Senator Levin 
today. I think this is so important we do this. At a time when our 
country finds itself in crisis, what could be wrong with a veteran 
getting retirement pay and disability pay at the same time? They are 
two separate earnings, one for being hurt, one for spending a lot of 
time in the military.
  I have worked hard on this. I appreciate the support of the Senator 
from Virginia and the Senator from Michigan. But I am saying here we 
can't let this opportunity pass. We would be letting down people whom 
we should not be letting down.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I would like to commend my distinguished 
colleague and friend on this particular issue. Among the group of us, 
you have been primarily the leader. My recollection is this is about 
the fourth year we have brought this up for attention and really asked 
the Senate to focus upon it. This year it was a direct focus upon it by 
the Senate and the House, and both Chambers put a provision in their 
bill.
  Mr. REID. I would also say to my friend from Virginia, not only that, 
but the House--we don't have a budget here, but the House budget 
includes this. They didn't include----
  Mr. WARNER. Yes.
  Mr. REID. They included it to 60 percent disabled. They have the 
dollars budgeted in the House. They did that. So the answer is 
absolutely correct.
  I vote for these defense budgets. I am for a strong military. I 
remind everyone here in this Iraq season we are in, I was the first 
Democrat to announce publicly to support the first President Bush. I 
had no problem doing that. I want a good, strong military. But I think 
part of that is rewarding these people for having been injured. Why 
should we take their retirement away from them because they have been 
injured? There is no reason.
  Mr. WARNER. I say to my colleague, we are now, as you know, in 
conference. Senator Levin and I work daily on this with our two 
colleagues from the House, Chairman Stump and Ike Skelton. This has not 
been resolved as yet.
  We, of course, have to take notice of what is stated here. Presumably 
the statement in the Pentagon, by Mr. Chu, would not have been made had 
there not been some consultation with the staff of the President. I 
don't know the extent this has been brought to his attention. After 
all, he has been among the staunchest defenders of the men and women of 
the Armed Forces--past, present and for the future.
  So I say to my friend, I will join him and others and continue to try 
to work this issue in our conference. But I believe your statement at 
this time, I say to my colleague, comes at a critical moment. Because 
that decision could be made, indeed, today, tomorrow, the next day, as 
to how, finally, to constitute the provisions of the House-Senate 
conference document which would then be brought back to both Chambers 
for vote.
  So I take to heart your comments. I will share them with our 
conferees. I express again my appreciation to you for your staunch--
staunch defense of our veterans. I humbly say, modestly: I am a 
veteran. As a matter of fact, I would not be here had it not been for 
what the military did for me. I have often said they did a lot more for 
me than I ever did for them in my modest service. But I assure you, I 
am contemporary with the World War II generation, and you are 
absolutely right. One thousand a day are departing.
  I have met with them. They have been among the more vigorous, to try 
and bring forth congressional action on this, as have any number of 
veterans' groups and groups associated with our military.
  I say to my friend, your message is timely. We should take it to 
heart and do our very best.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I can say to my friend, the ``gentleman'' 
from Virginia--and certainly he is the epitome of a gentleman--I 
appreciate very much his remarks.
  Mr. DORGAN. Will the Senator from Nevada yield for 2 brief questions?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator yield?
  Mr. WARNER. I have no objection, of course, but we are proceeding on 
the Iraq resolution. Following colleagues' comments and questions to 
our distinguished Democratic whip, we will return to, I believe, 
Senator Kyl to be recognized.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I am mindful there are others waiting to 
speak. But when I learned Senator Reid was going to speak today, I was 
going to ask him a couple of questions on this issue. I will just be 2 
to 3 minutes, if I can ask the indulgence of my colleagues.
  Mr. DOMENICI. If the Senator will yield, can I ask for the record 
that I follow Senator Kyl?
  Mr. WARNER. Certainly I have no objection. I think that is very 
helpful.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. That is ordered without objection.
  Mr. REID. And following Senator Dorgan, Senator Kyl be recognized for 
15 minutes and Senator Domenici for 15 minutes.
  Mr. DORGAN. I wanted to say to the Senator from Nevada, he has raised 
a very important issue at this point. Twenty-three of us in the Senate 
sent a letter to the authorizing committee on this subject, saying 
those soldiers who have earned a retirement should receive it, and 
those same soldiers who are entitled to a disability payment should 
receive that as well. It is that simple. Senator Reid of Nevada has 
made the case. It is just a very simple issue of equity.
  What I wanted to do is point out that NBC News did a story recently. 
I don't know whether the Senator mentioned this on the floor of the 
Senate. Hank Nix, from Ozark, AL, 52 years ago was shot in the chest. 
He took a bullet leading his platoon. He earned a Silver Star. He is 
now talking about having to move from their home because of what is 
called a broken promise. The Government is reducing his retirement pay 
because he is not allowed to collect both his disability--he is 100 
percent disabled, he took a bullet in the chest leading his platoon in 
the Korean war, but he is not allowed to collect the retirement he 
earned and a disability payment he is due. Why? Because there is a 
quirk in the law that applies only to disabled soldiers and no other 
Federal worker. About half a million soldiers are in this circumstance.
  It is, in my judgment, totally unforgivable that we don't fix this. 
It has been around for a long while. Many of us have talked about it on 
the floor of the Senate. I know the Senator from Virginia is in support 
of fixing it, as are, I think, most of our colleagues.
  I appreciate the fact that the Senator from Nevada brought this to 
the floor today because this is critically important. If we are going 
to get it fixed, now is the time to get it fixed. A military career is 
filled with hardships, family separations, and sacrifices, and all too 
often being put in harm's way. There are promises made to those folks 
who wear America's uniform, and then we are not keeping the promise 
with respect to this issue.
  Finally, let me say this: I have, as many of my colleagues have since 
September 11, 2002, visited military bases in Central Asia, 
Afghanistan, and elsewhere. You can see the pride in the eyes of those 
soldiers--men and women--who are fighting terrorism on behalf of our 
country. You know and they know we have an obligation to keep our 
promise to our veterans.
  George Washington said it 200 years ago. I will not repeat the quote 
that has been repeated many times on the floor of this Senate. But when 
we send young men and women to war to defend freedom, we have an 
obligation to keep our promises to them. One of those promises is to 
say: If you earn a retirement, we will pay you that retirement.

[[Page 19216]]

If you are disabled because of your service to our country, you are 
entitled to that disability payment. It is just that simple.
  I appreciate the Senator from Nevada bringing it to the floor.
  Mr. REID. I appreciate very much having worked with the Senator from 
North Dakota on this most important issue as we have on a number of 
issues.
  My point is, the conferees must not cave in on this. Let them veto 
this issue. We will override the veto. This isn't something that is, 
oh, well, we will see. As I said, let everyone here in the Senate 
decide whom they want to support--the President's people or the 
veterans of their States. This is an issue on which conferees cannot 
let us down.
  Mr. DORGAN. The President threatened a veto today--or the White House 
did, apparently. They said they cannot afford this. We can't afford not 
to do this. You just have to keep the promises here. I am talking about 
our country. We must keep our promise to veterans. I hope he will not 
veto. If he does, it will be overridden, I believe, by a very large 
margin here in the Senate.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Feinstein). The Senator from Arizona.
  Mr. KYL. Madam President, I support S.J. Res. 45 authorizing the use 
of force against Iraq.
  Perhaps the most difficult decision one can make as a Member of this 
body is to vote to send American troops into harm's way. It forces one 
to consider every question, every possibility, and every option short 
of war. But this does not mean we should eschew action simply because 
we have not yet tried every other option. Some threats must be dealt 
with before implausible alternatives are allowed to play out because of 
the consequences of delay. Preemption may be the only logical course of 
action in some situations. A nation need not allow itself to be struck 
to be justified in acting to protect itself.
  With these principles in mind, we can evaluate the need to authorize 
the use of force against Iraq. Actually, use of force against Iraq has 
already been authorized by both the United States and the United 
Nations. And the United States and Great Britain are already using 
force on a weekly basis.
  Notwithstanding his obligations to allow aerial inspections in the 
no-fly zones, Saddam Hussein regularly attempts to shoot down our 
unarmed reconnaissance planes, and we either react by destroying the 
offending anti-aircraft site or seek to discover and destroy it before 
it can fire--preemption. No one questions our right to do this.
  Two facts can, therefore, be established: No. 1, Saddam Hussein is 
not willing to allow unconditional inspections as he claims. He is not 
doing it now. No. 2, his continued violation of the United Nations 
resolutions requires a military response. That is assuming the 
resolutions were intended to be enforced when they were adopted. Delay 
in doing so only degrades our claim of authority to act and makes more 
difficult the task.
  No one can argue that the United States and the international 
community have not exhausted the full range of legal, diplomatic, and 
other alternatives to try to compel Saddam Hussein to obey all of the 
terms of the cease-fire to which he agreed at the end of the gulf war. 
His continuing defiance of that agreement, including his desire to 
acquire nuclear weapons and his support of terrorism, presents a real 
and growing threat to U.S. national security. We have now reached a 
juncture where the risks of inaction outweigh the risks of action.
  Those who oppose the authorization of force usually define the test 
as whether there is an immediate threat, asking, Why do we have to act 
now? But I submit this is the wrong question. Our intelligence will 
never be good enough to allow us to calibrate our action to a threat 
just a few days or a few weeks away. We simply do not know enough to do 
that. We cannot wait until we are sure that Iraq has a nuclear weapon 
and is about to use it because it is unlikely we will ever have that 
evidence, and it will be too late when we do.
  I find it ironic that some of the people insisting on this standard 
are also some of the loudest critics of our intelligence failures 
before September 11, arguing that we should have known an attack was 
imminent and we should have taken action to prevent it. If September 11 
had not happened, my guess is that these same people would be urging 
caution, arguing that since we haven't yet ``connected all the dots,'' 
any preemptive action at that time would be too risky and premature.
  Moreover, action is warranted now because there is no realistic hope 
that the United Nations resolutions and Saddam's promises to us at the 
end of the gulf war will otherwise be enforced, and each month that 
passes increases the danger.
  Finally, Iraq is another front in this war on terror. Eliminating 
Saddam's threat will give us greater latitude in other actions we will 
have to take, and it will create a more willing group of allies in the 
region. For some of these countries to throw in with us, they need to 
know that we are absolutely committed to winning and that they are 
better off joining the winning side than continuing to pay tribute to 
terrorists in order to protect their regimes from terrorists.
  While there is much about Iraq's capabilities we do not know, there 
are also some things we do know. No one, for example, can doubt the 
extent of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. The only question is when 
and how he will use them and how long it will be before he can add 
nuclear weapons to his existing chemical and biological capabilities.
  In recounting Iraq's nasty capabilities, it is useful to remind 
ourselves that Baghdad has continued to pursue the development of these 
weapons of mass destruction and the means to deliver them in violation 
of numerous U.N. resolutions. There are 13 such resolutions.
  During the 7 years that the United Nations Special Commission--
UNSCOM--inspectors were present in Iraq, Saddam Hussein went to great 
lengths to obstruct inspections to conceal his stockpiles and continue 
his programs under cloak of secrecy. It has now been 4 years since 
United Nations inspection teams last set foot in Iraq. We have evidence 
that Saddam has used that time to enhance his weapons and his 
development programs. I need not detail that evidence here. It has been 
amply discussed in a variety of open and closed sources of information 
provided by the administration, and it includes everything banned by 
the United Nations--chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons, and the 
means of delivering them.
  In addition, Saddam Hussein has demonstrated proclivity to use force 
to achieve his objectives--twice against his neighbors. And his 
aggressive ambitions have already led him to deploy the devastating 
weapons if his stockpiles. He used chemical weapons against Iran. He 
again used them against his own Kurdish population. And he has launched 
ballistic missiles against four neighbors. He is devoting enormous 
resources of his country to upgrade his threat, which is not an action 
of one who only wants to survive.
  There should be little doubt that Saddam Hussein will use his weapons 
of mass destruction again either to back up a threat to harm us if we 
stand in the way of some future aggression or in actual attack against 
us or our allies, including, potentially a terrorist type attack on our 
homeland. A recent article by Kenneth Pollack in the Arizona Republic 
amplifies this point. In the article, Pollack concludes, ``. . . there 
is every reason to believe that the question is not one of war or no 
war, but rather of war now or war later--a war without nuclear weapons 
or a war with them.''
  Saddam Hussein's abuse of the Iraqi people is also deplorable, not to 
mention a violation of a U.N. resolution passed just after the Gulf 
War, resolution 688. His hideous treatment of Iraqi men, women, and 
children is documented. A report published by Human Rights Watch in 
1990 described the shocking brutality of the Iraqi regime:

       Large numbers of persons have unquestionably died under 
     torture in Iraq over the past two decades. Each year there 
     have been reports of dozens--sometimes hundreds--of

[[Page 19217]]

     deaths, with bodies of victims left in the street or returned 
     to families bearing marks of torture. . . . The brazenness of 
     Iraqi authorities in returning bodies bearing clear evidence 
     of torture is remarkable. Governments that engage in torture 
     often go to great lengths to hide what they have done. . . . 
     A government so savage as to flaunt its crimes obviously 
     wants to strike terror in the hearts of its citizens. . . .

  And, as Iraqi citizens starve, Saddam has illegally used oil revenues 
from the U.N. oil-for-food program to rebuild his military 
capabilities, including his weapons of mass destruction. Then, of 
course, Saddam blames the United States and the United Nations for the 
suffering of the Iraqi people.
  Finally, there is Saddam Hussein's support for international 
terrorism. In his address to the Nation following the September 11 
attacks, President Bush presented the countries of the world with two 
unambiguous options. He said: ``Every nation in every region now has a 
decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the 
terrorists.'' Saddam Hussein made his decision.
  Iraq was the only Arab-Muslim country that failed to condemn the 
September 11 attack. In fact, the official Iraqi media stated on that 
day that America was ``reaping the fruits of [its] crimes against 
humanity.'' We know that Iraq has hosted members of al-Qaeda. And 
National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice has commented specifically 
on Iraq-al-Qaeda ties.
  ``We clearly know,'' she said, ``that there . . . have been contacts 
between senior Iraqi officials and members of al Qaeda. We know too 
that several of the [al Qaeda] detainees, in particular some high-
ranking detainees, have said that Iraq provided some training to al 
Qaeda in chemical weapons.''
  And Iraq has supported other terrorists. For example, Abu Abbas, the 
mastermind of the 1985 Achille Lauro hijacking and murderer of American 
Leon Klinghoffer, lives in Baghdad. The notorious Abu Nidal lived in 
Baghdad from 1974 to 1983, and then again recently until he was gunned 
down earlier this year. And Saddam Hussein has provided over $10 
million to the families of Palestinian homicide bombers.
  Now, the question is, what has the international community been doing 
about all of this? The answer, Madam President, is not much. The much-
touted doctrine of deterrence only works if agreements are enforced. 
Saddam obviously has not been deterred because no one has been willing 
to stop him from continuing his unlawful activities.
  Saddam Hussein has failed to live up to his cease-fire obligations. 
The U.N. has failed to enforce them. President Bush described it 
succinctly in his speech before the United Nations:

       Just months after the 1991 cease-fire, the Security Council 
     twice renewed its demand that the Iraqi regime cooperate 
     fully with inspectors, condemning Iraq's serious violations 
     of its obligations. The Security Council again renewed that 
     demand in 1994, and twice more in 1996, deploring Iraq's 
     clear violations of its obligations. The Security Council 
     renewed its demand three more times in 1997, citing flagrant 
     violations; and three more times in 1998, calling Iraq's 
     behavior totally unacceptable. And in 1999, the demand was 
     renewed yet again.

  If nothing else, the decade following the Gulf War has illustrated 
clearly the limits of U.N. diplomacy. But the U.S. does not have to 
participate in this folly. Our word must mean something. If we fail to 
force Saddam Hussein to comply with his obligations, we will have sowed 
the seeds of even greater and more threatening action in the future.
  Is it possible that we could avoid military actions by accepting 
Iraq's offer to allow unlimited inspections? The answer, I submit, is 
no. It would have been hard enough for UNSCOM, but it has been replaced 
by a new entity negotiated between Secretary General Kofi Annan and 
Iraq in 1998. Unlike UNSCOM, this new entity, the U.N. Monitoring, 
Verification, and Inspection Commission, known as UNMOVIC, is staffed 
by U.N. employees, rather than officials on loan from member 
governments.
  The inspectors--who are not even required to have expertise in 
relevant weapon programs--will not be able to make effective use of 
intelligence information. They can't receive intelligence information 
on a privileged basis, and the information that they gather can't flow 
back to national intelligence agencies, like our CIA. As Gary 
Millholin, Director of the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms control 
recently commented, ``This eliminates the main incentive for 
intelligence sources to provide UNMOVIC with information in the first 
place.'' Since most of what we learned during inspections was the 
result of intelligence gathered from Iraqi defectors, it is doubtful 
UNMOVIC could produce much of value.
  The absurdity of this set-up can only be trumped by the absurdity of 
believing that this commission could possibly succeed against a vicious 
dictator who has spent the last 11 years perfecting the arts of 
concealment and deception in a country the size of France. As David 
Kay, former head of the U.N.'s nuclear inspection team, recently 
remarked, ``The only way you will end the weapons of mass destruction 
program in Iraq is by removing Saddam from power.''
  Let me repeat that. This is from the former head of the nuclear 
inspection team of the United Nations:

       The only way you will end the weapons of mass destruction 
     program in Iraq is by removing Saddam from power.

  Here is the bottom line on the international community's ability to 
deal with the Iraqi threat: Since the end of the Gulf War, Saddam has a 
nearly perfect record in violating U.N. Security Council resolutions. 
The United Nations, in turn, has a nearly perfect record in failing to 
enforce them.
  It is time to end this whole charade. Knowing that diplomacy will 
continue to fail, we have an obligation to act, and not allow diplomacy 
to be used as a weapon by a brutal dictator. That is a lesson we should 
have learned through our experiences with the likes of Hitler, Stalin, 
Ho Chi Minh, and Slobodan Milosevic. Moreover, too much is at stake to 
place American security in the hands of unaccountable bureaucrats at 
the U.N.
  It is time for military action that will terminate the regime of 
Saddam Hussein and destroy his weapons of mass destruction. We cannot 
be assured of peace unless this threat is removed.
  Some observers still insist that we should try to contain Saddam 
through the doctrine of deterrence. After all, they say, we relied on 
deterrence to contain the Soviets for 50 years, and maybe that will 
work against Saddam. Mr. President, perhaps we should be thankful that 
we suddenly have so many new converts to deterrence, since many of 
these same voices were 20 years ago arguing instead for a nuclear 
freeze and unilateral U.S. disarmament. I'll remember their newfound 
commitment to deterrence as we attempt to deal with China's growing 
militarization in the coming months and years.
  There are situations where deterrence can work. This is not one of 
them for two reasons. First deterrence has a shelf life. If there is no 
response to violations, a dictator is not deterred--the threat of 
retaliation is no longer credible. The U.N. has done nothing and the 
U.S. next to nothing. As a result, Saddam has not been deterred. In any 
event, containment and deterrence do not apply well in this case.
  President Bush was absolutely correct when he declared at West Point 
that ``deterrence means nothing against shadowy terrorist networks with 
no nation or citizens to defend;'' and, ``containment is not possible 
when unbalanced dictators with weapons of mass destruction can deliver 
those weapons on missiles or secretly provide them to terrorist 
allies.''
  While belatedly embracing deterrence, critics of force reject a 
doctrine of preemption. Yes, they say, there have always been 
situations where countries had to act with force to prevent some attack 
on them, but that's different from an announced doctrine of preemption.
  There are several answers. The first is: no it is not. Preemption 
only applies to certain situations--like Iraq. Though Iran presents 
many of the same circumstances as Iraq, there are differentiating 
factors that make preemption less appropriate vis-a-vis Iran.

[[Page 19218]]

There is no ``outstanding warrant'' as with Iraq; regime change could 
come from within Iran; and, militarily, force is much less an option--
to name three differences.
  Second, it is senseless to require a ``smoking gun'' in order to act. 
As Secretary Rumsfeld has said: ``A gun doesn't smoke until it's been 
fired and the goal has to be to stop such an attack before it starts.''
  Since September 11, this takes on a whole new meaning. Don't think 
smoking gun--think World Trade Center and Pentagon.
  As we stand here more than one year after 3,000 innocent civilians 
perished at the hands of vicious terrorists, we need to ask ourselves, 
do we really want to wait until another attack, perhaps one using 
weapons of mass destruction? What opponents really mean is, wait until 
just before such an attack, and only act if we're reasonably sure the 
attack is coming. Obviously, we can't count on knowing that, and the 
potential consequences are too great to risk it.
  So the answer to that question is an emphatic no. September 11 
changed everything, or at least should have changed everything, in the 
way we approach these matters. September 11 moved us out of the realm 
of international relations theory and into the realm of self-defense. 
If the President decides to move against Iraq, it will be an act of 
self-defense. And by voting to authorize the President to take that 
action, this body will be authorizing an act of self-defense. Knowing 
what we know, how could we explain inaction if we were subsequently 
attacked?
  What's more, it should be obvious that if Saddam acquires nuclear 
weapons, it will give him the ability to deter us. We are already 
hearing arguments against the use of force because of the potential of 
Iraq using chemical or biological weapons against our forces. Consider 
having this debate a few months or years from now after we've 
ascertained that he definitely has a nuclear saber to rattle. This will 
make a move against Saddam, or any other American action in the Middle 
East, more dangerous, and in all probability, less likely. It is 
Saddam's dream come true. He will be able to check our actions. So, 
again, the time to act is now.
  But, some critics say, we must wait for international approval. Mr. 
President, I submit that the proponents of ``multilateralism,'' in 
addition to willfully ignoring the fecklessness of the U.N. and certain 
other countries, neglect the special leadership role that our country 
plays in the world.
  It is no accident that it devolved to us to end German imperialism in 
World War I, stop Adolf Hitler in World War II, and defeat the forces 
of international communism in the Cold War. It is no accident that the 
oppressed peoples of the world look at us, rather than other countries 
or the U.N., as their ray of hope. That is why we lead, and why we must 
lead.
  We are fortunate to have a President today who appreciates this. 
While much of the rest of the world insists on burying its head in the 
sand or clinging to failed approaches, President Bush understands that 
now is the time to confront Saddam. And while others insist on a false 
distinction between the Iraqi threat and the war on terrorism, 
President Bush has, as Noemie Emery has written in The Weekly Standard, 
connected the dots. In so doing, writes Emery, President Bush has, like 
Harry Truman when the Soviets encroached on Greece and Turkey in the 
1940s, perceived ``an ominous and enlarging pattern'' that demanded a 
response. Emery continues, ``Several presidents have had to wage wars, 
but only two, Bush and Truman, have had to perceive them, and then to 
define them as wars.''
  This is the essence of leadership. By perceiving that we can no 
longer afford to be attacked before we act, President Bush's doctrine 
of preemption allows us, where appropriate, to act first against 
terrorist organizations and states.
  Our use of force in self-defense against Iraq will also help liberate 
the beleaguered people of Iraq. Aside from the moral imperative, there 
are a number of tangible benefits to the United States that a more 
democratic Iraq will bring.
  First, if real democracy can take hold, it will dispel the notion 
that the people of the Middle East are incapable of democratic 
governance, just as Taiwan and the Philippines have destroyed the 
``Asian values'' myth in recent years. It's notable that the scourge of 
Islamic terrorism has been nurtured, not in democratic Muslim countries 
such as Turkey, but in repressive dictatorships like Iraq, Iran, Syria, 
and Saudi Arabia. A democratic regime in Baghdad will set an example 
and hopefully spark other badly-needed changes in governments in the 
region. And, in the long run, democracy will prove to be the antidote 
to Islamic-based terrorism.
  A democratic regime that follows our removal of Saddam Hussein will 
also provide us with a new and reliable ally in this critical part of 
the world. The war on terrorism will almost certainly entail additional 
actions, and the intelligence, political support, overflight rights and 
the like from an allied regime in Iraq could prove critical to those 
efforts.
  Lastly, a democratic Iraq will bring that nation's vast oil 
production capabilities back onto the world market. This will help the 
world economy by, among other things, lessening the ability of the 
Saudis and others to manipulate oil prices.
  While I support this resolution and support using force to rid the 
world of Saddam Hussein, I do want to offer a few caveats.
  First, our commitment to this effort must be total. Our goal here 
must be nothing short of the destruction of the current Iraqi regime. 
There is no other realistic way to permanently disarm Iraq of its 
weapons of mass destruction. And providing our Armed Forces with 
anything less than everything they need to accomplish that goal is 
unacceptable. And that includes the support of our intelligence 
community.
  Second, after removing the regime, we must resist the temptation to 
rush home. As I just stated, there are enormous benefits in helping 
Iraq achieve democracy. However, it is most unlikely that Iraq can be 
stabilized and democratized without a significant U.S. presence after 
the defeat of Saddam.
  There can be no questioning the fact that the U.S. occupation of 
Germany and Japan after World War II was critical to forging those two 
countries into the democracies they now are. I am not saying we need to 
copy those examples precisely, but it would be short-sighted and 
dangerous for us to leave a shattered Iraq on its own or in the hands 
of the United Nations after the removal of Saddam.
  Third, we must not undertake this struggle on the cheap. We should 
make no mistake: this operation is going to require a great deal of 
manpower, weapons platforms and equipment, possibly for quite some 
time. Those forces need to come from somewhere, and our forces have 
already been stretched thin by the profusion of peacekeeping missions 
and the budget cuts of the 1990s.
  Meanwhile, we need to maintain and, I would say, even augment our 
deterrent posture elsewhere in the world. For example, last year's 
Quadrennial Defense Review, mostly drafted before September 11, called 
for increasing our carrier presence in the Western Pacific. This seems 
to me to be quite necessary, given that we normally have only one 
carrier--the Kitty Hawk--in that region, but two potential conflict 
zones, Korea and Taiwan. Yet, when we began our operations in 
Afghanistan last year, the Kitty Hawk was called to duty in the Arabian 
Sea, leaving us with no carrier in the Western Pacific for months.
  We will almost certainly face this situation again if we go to war 
against Iraq, and it is not something that we should ignore. The 
upshot, is that this body needs to come to grips with the need for a 
defense budget that supports the cost of operations like Afghanistan 
and Iraq, defense transformation and an adequate global force posture. 
At current spending levels, we are going to come up short of that goal.
  Last, but not least, I believe the administration needs to be very 
careful

[[Page 19219]]

in its diplomatic efforts to secure a new U.N. Security Council 
resolution. That body includes the terrorist regime of Syria, Communist 
China, which threatens our friends on Taiwan and sells fiber-optics to 
Iraq, and Russia, which has forged close economic ties with Iraq over 
the past decade. Principle, not expedience, must be our ultimate guide 
in dealing with these countries that hold the votes to deny or 
authorize U.N.-backed action.
  If we need to make concessions to these regimes that undermine our 
interests elsewhere--in Taiwan, for example--then it is not worth 
securing their votes in the Council. Ultimately, we should be prepared 
to defend our interests with or without the U.N.
  Which bring me to my conclusion, Mr. President.
  This resolution we are considering today, and this action the 
President is contemplating in Iraq, is not about carrying out the will 
of the United Nations or restoring its effectiveness. It is not about 
assuring the world that the United States is committed to 
``multilateralism.''
  Section 3(a)(1) is the heart and soul of this resolution. It 
authorizes the President to use the Armed Forces of the United States 
to ``defend the national security of the United States against the 
continuing threat posed by Iraq.''
  That is what we are doing here today, defending our national 
security.
  It is a sobering, and humbling, task. But as members of the United 
States Senate, it is our solemn duty.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia.
  Mr. WARNER. Madam President, I compliment our distinguished 
colleague. I say to the Senator, even though you have given your 
statement, I anticipate this debate in the Senate will continue for 2 
days, and perhaps you will find the opportunity to revisit the floor 
and, again, personally elaborate on your points.
  Today, you have given a very important and timely historical context 
of the events, and the sequence of those events. And you have placed 
extremely important emphasis on what the U.N. is trying to do today, as 
we are right here, in fashioning an inspection regime that is much 
stronger than the one that is on the books from when Hans Blix was 
appointed. But I am sure the Senator observed Hans Blix, after visiting 
with Iraqi officials in Austria, said he would like to wait until the 
Security Council acted.
  So what we are looking forward to now is the evolving process of a 
regime which I think has to meet the criteria established by our 
President and the Prime Minister of Great Britain, and others, before 
we can accept that as a workable solution. Would the Senator agree?
  Mr. KYL. Madam President, I hope to have the opportunity to speak to 
this issue again, but I will say two quick things in response to the 
Senator from Virginia.
  First, I note that Hans Blix has largely, it appears to me from news 
media accounts, agreed with the position of the United States on what 
would be necessary to conduct meaningful inspections that would result 
in the disarmament of Saddam Hussein because, as he noted, the object 
here is not inspections; the object is disarmament. And inspections 
would be but a way to achieve that.
  Secondly, as I said, I think that only the most naive would believe 
that it is possible to have an effective regime, irrespective of what 
kind of resolution were adopted, as long as Saddam Hussein is in power. 
That is why I quoted the former U.N. inspection team leader David Kay, 
who made the point, with which I totally agree, that as long as Saddam 
Hussein is in power there, it is impossible to have disarmament of the 
kind that was called for at the end of the gulf war.
  Mr. WARNER. I thank my colleague. Assuming the Security Council will 
act, I will personally await the judgment of our President and that of 
the Prime Minister of Great Britain with regard to the structure and 
effectiveness, potentially, of such a new regime.
  In this debate we have sort of gone back and forth in a very 
effective discourse on the issues. I wonder if at this time I might ask 
unanimous consent that the junior Senator from Virginia, Mr. Allen, 
might follow our distinguished colleague, Mr. Domenici.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. WARNER. I thank the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Madam President, I have 15 minutes, I believe.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator may proceed. He does.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Madam President, I would like to talk about the Iraqi 
situation for a small portion of my 15 minutes.
  The more I have been reading about this, the more I have been 
studying it, the more I come to an answer that I have to make as to 
whether I will give the President authority to use our military forces 
along with other countries so as to avoid the use of weapons of mass 
destruction by Saddam Hussein. I have to ask myself a question: How is 
he most apt to disarm? What is most apt to make him disarm? Talk? 
Resolutions? I think not.
  When we are finished, a huge majority of the Senate will say this is 
not necessarily a question of war or peace.
  This could be a question of whether an America armed for war, with 
the full knowledge on the part of Saddam Hussein that we are armed for 
war, and the President has the authority, might that bring about 
disarmament on the part of Saddam Hussein sooner than any other means 
that we know about thus far as we look at the Middle East and its 
various problems.
  I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business on the 
American economy.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  (The remarks of Mr. Domenici are printed in today's Record under 
``Morning Business.'')
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia is recognized under 
the unanimous consent agreement for 15 minutes.
  Mr. ALLEN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that I be able to 
speak for up to 30 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. ALLEN. Madam President, I rise to address the most pressing and 
difficult issue facing our Nation today. Over the course of the next 
few days, we will be debating in the Senate and we will vote on the 
most serious responsibility the U.S. Constitution delegates to 
Congress, which is authorizing the use of military force against 
another nation.
  I have only been here for about a year and a half. I passed in the 
hallway the senior Senator from Virginia, John Warner, who told me, 
``This is the first time you will have to do this.'' He said he has 
been through this experience seven times. I am sure he takes the same 
sort of care and consideration each time. But for me, this is the first 
time I have had to face such a question and such an issue as to where I 
stand.
  It is my view the use of military force to resolve a dispute must be 
the last of all options for our Nation. Before entering into such a 
decision, it is absolutely necessary Government officials sincerely and 
honestly are confident they exhausted all practical and realistic 
diplomatic avenues and understand the short-term as well as the long-
term ramifications and implications of such actions.
  Exercising our best judgment based on the evidence of the threat, we 
must look at the consequence not only on the international community, 
but, more importantly, on the effect such action would have on the 
people of our country.
  In considering the use of military action, my thoughts immediately 
turn to the people of the Commonwealth of Virginia. While the use of 
Armed Forces affects all Americans, it has traditionally had a 
significant impact on Virginia. The Commonwealth is home to literally 
tens of thousands of brave men and women who risk their lives to defend 
the freedoms we enjoy. The prospect of war places the lives of many of 
these men and women in jeopardy, and it means constant anxiety and fear 
for their families, wherever they may be based--whether in the

[[Page 19220]]

U.S. or overseas, whether on land or on the seas.
  I know from my experience as Governor how we rely heavily on the 
National Guard and Reserves whenever military action is necessitated, 
especially in the past decade. Military action will call up more 
Reserves and more of the National Guard when they are protecting our 
safety. It will disrupt those families and businesses and communities 
all across our great land.
  This is not a decision I come to easily or without prayers for 
guidance and wisdom. The use of our Armed Forces means lives are at 
risk. The history of military action shows there are frequently 
unintended consequences and unseen dangers whenever the military is 
utilized. Fiscally, military action is expensive and can cause unrest 
both in the U.S. and international markets. When considering these 
outcomes, it is obvious using force to resolve the dispute is the least 
desirable and the last option for our country. But military action must 
remain an option for our diplomatic efforts to have any credibility or 
success.
  I have listened and read comments from constituents and people all 
over this country, sincere words from the Religious Society of Friends 
and Pax Christi. They are well-meaning in pointing out their sentiments 
and the risks involved. However, we must weigh these risks and probable 
outcomes in the context of the threat Iraq poses to the U.S. and to our 
interests. I agree with the President, and the CIA, and the Department 
of Defense, and the State Department, that Iraq and Saddam Hussein's 
regime are a credible threat to the United States and our interests and 
our allies around the world. Because that threat is present and real, I 
believe the dangers will become substantially greater with continued 
inaction by the international community, or the United States acting in 
concert with allies.
  The ``whereas'' clauses of the resolution we are debating effectively 
spell out good reasons, and reasons I look at for authorizing the 
President to use military action, if necessary. Saddam Hussein has 
continually, brazenly disregarded and defied resolutions and orders to 
disarm and discontinue his pursuit of the world's worst weapons. To 
bring an end to the Gulf War and Saddam's violent attempt to occupy 
Kuwait, the Iraqi leader unequivocally agreed to eliminate chemical, 
biological, and nuclear weapons programs, as well as putting severe 
limits on his missiles and the means to deliver and develop them. Since 
that armistice was reached in 1991, it has been consistently and 
constantly breached by Saddam's regime, and has not been enforced at 
all by the U.N. for the past 4 long years.
  Can one imagine a nuclear weapon in the hands of Saddam Hussein? 
Let's not forget this is a head of state who has demonstrated his 
willingness to use chemical weapons on other nations and his own 
citizens with little or no reservation.
  If the current Iraqi regime possessed a nuclear weapon, it would 
drastically alter a balance of power in an already explosive region of 
the world. Such a capability would renew Saddam's quest for regional 
dominance and leave many U.S. citizens, allies, and interests at great 
peril.
  This man has no respect for international laws or rules of 
engagement. I share President Bush's fear that increased weapons 
capability would leave the fate of the Middle East in the hands of a 
tyrannical and very cruel dictator.
  Most dangerous, currently, is not his desire to have nuclear weapons, 
but stockpiling of chemical weapons, the stockpiling of a variety of 
biological weapons; and also his missile range capabilities, that far 
exceed U.N. restrictions.
  There is another concern not only that he has stockpiled biological 
and chemical weapons and the means of delivering them, but also the 
justifiable and understandable fear that he could transfer those 
biological or chemical agents to a terrorist group or other 
individuals. After all, Saddam Hussein is the same heartless person who 
offers $25,000 to families of children who commit suicide terrorist 
acts in Israel.
  The goal of the United States and the international community needs 
to be disarmament. Saddam Hussein must be stripped of all capabilities 
to develop, manufacture, and stockpile these weapons of mass 
destruction, meaning chemical, biological agents, and the missiles and 
other means to deliver them by himself or by a terrorist subcontractor.
  If regime change is collateral damage of disarmament, I do not 
believe there is anyone in the world who will mourn the loss of this 
deposed dictator. True disarmament can only be accomplished with 
inspection teams that have the ability to travel and investigate where 
they deem appropriate. To ensure they have full access to inspections 
is a key component of what the President of the United States is trying 
to get the United Nations to do.
  We are trying to get full and unimpeded inspections. It would be 
appropriate for us to say noncompliance would result in forced 
disarmament.
  The U.S. and the world cannot afford to have this mission undermined 
by wild goose chases and constant surreptitious, conniving evasion and 
large suspect areas being declared by Saddam to be immune from 
inspection.
  I commend President Bush for recognizing the importance of including 
all countries in this effort. His statement to the United Nations on 
September 12, 2002, clearly and accurately spelled out the dangers Iraq 
poses to the world. By placing the onus on the United Nations, the 
President has given that international body the opportunity to re-
establish its relevance in important world affairs, and finally enforce 
the resolutions that its Security Council has passed for the last 
eleven years.
  Passing a new resolution will increase the credibility of the United 
Nations, which has steadily eroded since the mid 1990s. The Security 
Council has an obligation to provide weapons inspectors with the 
flexibility to accomplish their mission. This can only be realized if a 
resolution is passed with consequences for inaction or defiance.
  That is why as the United Nations debates a new and stronger 
resolution against Iraq, the United States must be united in our 
resolve for disarmament. Passing a resolution authorizing our President 
to use military force in the event that diplomatic efforts are 
unsuccessful sends a clear message to the international community that 
Americans are united in our foreign policy.
  I respectfully disagree with the premise that the President must 
first petition the United Nations before asking Congress for authority. 
I question: How can we expect the United Nations to act against Iraqi 
defiance if the U.S. Government does not stand with our President and 
our administration's efforts to persuade the United Nations and the 
international community to enforce their own resolutions?
  It is right for us to debate the resolutions before the Senate, to 
voice concerns and sentiments in support or opposition. Each Member 
will take a stand and be accountable, and when the debate concludes, I 
respectfully ask my colleagues, when a resolution is agreed to, stand 
strong with our troops, our diplomats, and our mission. From time to 
time, one sees elected officials who moan in self-pity about having to 
make a tough decision that may not be popular. Well, I know the vast 
majority of the Senators, regardless of their ultimate position on this 
issue, can make tough decisions with minimal whimpering. Senators have 
all been elected by the people of their States to exercise judgment 
consistent with principles and promises.
  As the Senate debates the merits of each resolution, it must be 
prepared for the possibility of continued inaction by the United 
Nations. Americans cannot stand by and cannot cede any authority or 
sovereignty to an international body when the lives and interests of 
U.S. citizens are involved.
  I believe it would be a grave mistake for the United Nations to shirk 
its responsibility regarding Iraq; however, a consensus might not be 
reached with all nations on the U.N. Security Council. If that 
circumstance arises, the United States and the President will have a 
duty to garner as much international support as is realistically 
possible.

[[Page 19221]]

  Blissful, delusional dawdling, wishful thinking, and doing nothing is 
not an option for the United States. However, continuing the diplomatic 
work in face of the Security Council veto is necessary not only for 
diplomacy, but to gain allies to help shoulder the logistical and 
operational burdens that would be a part of any military campaign.
  It is true the United States can disarm Saddam Hussein alone. 
However, as we continue to pursue the venomous, vile al-Qaida 
terrorists and other terrorist supporters, we would greatly benefit 
from allied support in these extended efforts. I believe we will see 
more allies join this effort to disarm Saddam Hussein's regime. Britain 
will not be our sole teammate in this effort. As other countries begin 
to understand the severity of the threat, they will recognize it is in 
their best interest to disarm Iraq.
  The UK along with Spain, Italy and some countries from the Middle 
East have supported our position. Kuwait, Qatar, and the Saudis have 
also indicated that maybe they will not send troops in, but have 
offered logistical bases that would be helpful for our tactical air 
strikes.
  We do not want to make this a war against a particular group or 
certain religious beliefs. We must guard against any rhetoric or 
statement that is targeted against Muslims or Arabs. Our mission is to 
protect the United States, its allies, and interests by upholding 
internationally agreed-upon resolutions to disarm Iraq of biological, 
chemical, nuclear, and missile technologies. I urge the President to 
make absolutely clear that in the event we have to seek support from 
allies, that we continue to do so in the Middle East.
  As a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, I have participated 
in committee meetings and top secret briefings and analyzed this issue 
very closely, and with questions. After reviewing the several 
resolutions offered by our colleagues, I believe the best way to 
provide the President with the authority and the support he may need is 
by passing the authorization for use of military force against Iraq.
  This resolution, introduced and offered by Senator Warner and Senator 
Lieberman, as well as Senator McCain and others, gives the President 
the authority and flexibility to ensure the protection of the United 
States. I am particularly pleased that the resolution will task the 
President with determining that diplomatic means will not adequately 
protect the national security of the United States. This determination 
will ensure the United States is exhausting every diplomatic option 
before authorizing the use of our Armed Forces.
  I refer to section 2 on page 7 of the resolution and those clauses 
therein: Where the Congress of the United States supports the efforts 
of the President to strictly enforce United Nations Security Council 
resolutions applicable to Iraq and encourages him in those efforts. It 
also encourages the President to obtain prompt and decisive action by 
the Security Council to ensure that Iraq abandons its strategy of 
delay, evasion, and noncompliance, and promptly and strictly complies 
with all relevant security resolutions.
  I interpret this as also, in dealing not just with the United 
Nations, but also garnering allies in the process.
  I will continue to listen intently to the debate on all the 
resolutions regarding Iraq. However, I truly and sincerely believe that 
Senate Joint Resolution 46, which I referenced earlier, will provide a 
sense of the Senate that the Congress, and most importantly, in our 
reflection in representation, a reflection that Americans are united 
behind our President and we support efforts to garner allied and U.N. 
support in the event that diplomatic options fail to disarm Saddam 
Hussein.
  We all know that Saddam Hussein is a vile dictator with regard for 
only his own survival. He compromises the well-being of all Iraqis in 
his efforts to maintain power and accumulate wealth. History shows the 
Iraqi leader only responds when there is a gun put to his head. Sweet 
talking will not do any good with this man.
  Now we are seeing this phenomenon play out as he allows weapons 
inspections to resume only after intense, consistent pressure from the 
international community. But even then what we are seeing again is the 
same shell game of conditions and prevarications that led to the 
departure of inspectors 4 years ago. We must not allow him to continue 
with these ploys of deception.
  I do not believe any American welcomes the prospect of deploying our 
brave men and women for military action. However, standing strong and 
united as a country, together with our President, our diplomats, and 
our defense forces, and in favor of congressional authority to use 
force if it is absolutely necessary, is the best way to ensure Saddam 
Hussein is disarmed and military conflict is actually avoided.
  The greatest responsibility of this Government and its officials is 
to protect and ensure the national security of the United States and 
our citizens. We know Saddam Hussein poses a threat to our country, and 
it is incumbent upon every Member of this body to help neutralize that 
threat. I am hopeful this problem will be resolved peacefully, through 
international diplomacy. But in the event those efforts fail, I do not 
want our President to be hobbled without the authority to protect the 
citizens of the United States of America.
  Therefore, when my name is called, I will stand with President Bush, 
stand with our diplomats, stand with our troops and support this 
serious and necessary resolution, which is designed to save innocent 
American lives.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alaska is recognized.
  Mr. STEVENS. Madam President, I think this is one of the most serious 
issues I have ever addressed on this floor, and I thank Lindsay Hayes 
and Karina Waller, who are with me today, for their help in preparing 
this statement.
  There are few of us still around who lived through events which led 
to World War II. I was in high school, as a matter of fact, and I 
studied Hitler's actions month after month in history class. I vividly 
remember watching the world appease Hitler while he pursued an 
aggressive military policy aimed at dominating the world.
  The current situation reminds me of the agreements we studied in high 
school which were made after World War I. Hitler just waved them away. 
When Hitler flaunted the terms of the Versailles Peace Treaty, France 
and Britain did nothing to enforce it. When Hitler occupied the 
Rhineland and the Anschluss in Austria, no nation tried to stop him. 
Instead, the world repeatedly gave into an obnoxious, aggressive leader 
to avoid war.
  When I was a senior in high school many of my friends left school to 
enlist. I left Oregon State College in December of 1942. Only seven of 
us in the Senate today served during World War II, but as one who 
fought in China, the ``Forgotten War,'' I see the next Hitler in Saddam 
Hussein.
  Senator Warner, Senator Inouye, Sam Nunn, and I also experienced the 
horror of the gulf war firsthand. In 1991, in an Israeli defense 
conference room we were told a Scud had been fired at Tel Aviv, which 
is where we were, and it could be carrying chemical or biological 
agents. Gas Masks were passed around the room and we waited about 20 
minutes before being told that the Scud had fallen. The next morning we 
went to locate the Scud and found that it had been grazed by a Patriot 
missile. It had hit an apartment complex.
  This was quite an interesting experience to Senator Inouye and I 
because several years before this incident Senator Dan Inouye and I had 
demanded that the anti-aircraft Patriot be modified to become an anti-
missile system, and we were in Israel witnessing the use of that 
Patriot system.
  Over 20 years ago, the Israelis saved the world a great deal of pain 
when they destroyed the Iraqi nuclear reactor. That action delayed an 
Iraqi bomb by at least 15 years, and that raid also made Hussein more 
cautious. Today he has spread out and carefully concealed his military-
weapons infrastructure to make destruction of those weapons more 
difficult.

[[Page 19222]]

  We seek peace.
  We abhor war.
  We work to assure our military capacity is second to none because we 
believe in this new world no nation has time to re-arm. We must be 
ready instantly to defend our interests at home and abroad or perish.
  Our President is right to shake Hussien's cage. The Middle East is a 
tinder box, but only one nation has the ability to ignite the entire 
world, and that is Iraq.
  Saddam Hussein cannot be allowed to expand beyond his borders again 
and he cannot continue developing weapons of mass destruction.
  President Bush has an important role as the leader of the free world 
as he repeatedly states there is a menace in Iraq and it is growing.
  This is the most serious situation we have faced since World War II.
  Since the end of the Persian Gulf war, our forces have been enforcing 
the United Nation's mandate that there should be two no-fly zones in 
Iraq. Our planes fly patrols for the United Nations, over those no-fly 
zones daily and have been shot at almost every day. We cannot allow 
this continued risk to the lives of our own pilots.
  The threat of weapons of mass destruction was real during the Persian 
Gulf war. It is even more real today. Five years ago, weapons 
inspectors were forced out of Iraq. Based on classified briefings I 
have received I have no doubt that Saddam Hussein has used this 
opportunity to expand his weapons program.
  Iraq has not accounted for hundreds of tons of chemical precursors 
and tens of thousands of unfilled munitions canisters. It has not 
accounted for at least 15,000 artillery rockets previously used for 
delivering nerve agents or 550 artillery shells filled with mustard 
gas. When inspectors left Iraq in 1998, the regime was capable of 
resuming bacterial warfare agent production within weeks. Hussein has 
had time to produce stockpiles of anthrax and other agents, including 
smallpox, and he is not afraid to use these weapons.
  He has used weapons of mass destruction against Iranians, against his 
own people, and, I believe, against some of our military in the gulf 
war.
  When Hussein begins blackmailing his neighbors and using his 
resources, The world will face an impossible situation. If Hussein's 
weapons program continues unchecked our allies--his neighbors--face an 
unconventional threat of immense proportions--a threat more horrible 
than all Hitler's legions.
  The President needs our support to form a coalition that can confront 
this crisis. We must grant President Bush the same powers that Congress 
has given his predecessors.
  We must pass this resolution now or our children, or our 
grandchildren, are going to shed a monstrous amount of blood to deal 
with this threat in the future.
  Hussein will use these weapons if he is not stopped now. He will 
become a Hitler. He will continue as Hitler started--dominating one 
country after another. With the weapons he has, he need only to 
threaten their use, or to use them as he did in Iran. Then ours will be 
a terrible dilemma: how does the world deal with a madman who has 
weapons against which the world cannot defend?
  If any Senator has doubts about this resolution, I ask them to ask 
themselves this question: is Saddam Hussein really ready to become part 
of the family of nations again? Can anyone on this Senate floor answer 
that question ``Yes''?
  The U.N. has told Hussein that he must disarm 16 times. Sixteen times 
he has defied that body. He has lied. He has not once complied. Between 
1991 and 1998, Iraq practiced a series of deceitful tactics designed to 
prevent U.N. inspectors from completing inspections. The same course of 
action will bring the same results.
  As I have traveled at home, I am often asked ``How do we know Hussein 
is so bad?'' Our intelligence agencies have developed an enormous 
amount of evidence on his activities, his use of weapons of mass 
destruction, and his lies and deceptions. Unfortunately, this 
information is mostly classified to protect sources and methods by 
which the information was acquired.
  As one of the Senate who is briefed on a regular basis I believe our 
intelligence agencies understand the nature of the threat Iraq poses. 
However, while it is likely that Iraq has large amounts of biological 
and chemical weapons, our knowledge of their ability to deliver those 
agents against long-range targets outside of Iraq is limited.
  To assure the formation of a coalition to contain Hussein, we must 
pass this resolution.
  The President must have this authority. We want the U.N. to demand 
full inspections before this threat becomes even greater. This 
Congressional authorization to use force if necessary will send a 
message to the United Nations: Congress is united. We stand behind our 
Commander in Chief.
  In 1945 the world community gathered together to denounce the 
atrocities committed by Hitler and form the United Nations. That action 
made a commitment to protect succeeding generations from the scourge of 
war and promised such horrors would never again take place. Now it is 
incumbent upon the United National to fulfill that promise. The U.N. 
must send a message that the international community will not tolerate 
regimes which commit genocide against their own people, employ weapons 
of mass destruction against other countries, and harbor terrorists.
  The world community must confront this Iraqi threat. This resolution 
gives the President the support he needs to convince the U.N. to join 
in building that coalition.
  United States policy must be clear. Should the United Nations fail to 
live up to its promise, this resolution authorizes the President to 
take the necessary steps to protect the United States and ensure the 
stability of the world community.
  With this authority the President may state clearly to members of 
other nations: Are you with us? Do you support our determination to 
face this threat now?
  We are not alone, Great Britain and other nations are already 
supporting our President.
  A new history of international courage can be written now. This 
generation need not endure a long and bloody world war if our leaders 
stand together and state clearly: the world will not condone defiance 
and deception, we will not allow a dictator to rise from the ashes of 
defeat to menace the world with awesome weapons.
  I support our Commander in Chief.
  I shall vote for the administration's bipartisan resolution.
  Our Nation is the last real superpower. The burden of that status is 
that every nation in the world must know we will use our military 
force, if necessary, to prevent tyrants from acquiring and using 
weapons of annihilation.
  It is my belief that with this authority President Bush may prove 
that determination to the United Nations and there will be a coalition 
that will bring peace through strength to the Middle East.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Carper). The Senator from Virginia.
  Mr. WARNER. I thank our distinguished colleague from Alaska. It was 
very helpful for him to make references to his knowledge of the pre-
world War II days. He had a very distinguished career in World War II 
as a member of the Army Air Corp and as a pilot. I had a very modest 
one at the tail end, just in training, in the Navy. But both of us 
remember that period very well.
  The Senator emphasized quite forcibly the need for the United Nations 
to face up to this. Having lived through that period, we remember the 
League of Nations. We remember the blatant attack by the Italian 
military under the leadership of Mussolini against then Abyssinia, now 
referred to as the nation of Ethiopia, and how the league began to look 
at that situation, and look at it and look at it and look at it and did 
nothing, and then the aggression during the attacks by Japan on China.
  The Senator recalls these periods in history. Eventually the league 
went out of business. It fell into the dust bin

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of history and in some small vestige was absorbed into the United 
Nations.
  I have a strong view, and I think our President has made reference to 
this, that unless the United Nations lives up to its charter and 
assumes the responsibility of enforcing its own Security Council 
resolution, that organization, too, could fall into the dust bin of 
history, not unlike the League of Nations.
  Does the Senator share those views?
  Mr. STEVENS. I certainly do. I share deeply the views of the Senator 
from Virginia. It does seem to me that we should have learned a lesson 
from the period of World War II. It took a terrible attack upon Pearl 
Harbor to bring us to the point where we were willing to enter that 
war. Our Nation was part of the group trying to brush Hitler under the 
rug, thinking somehow or another this would go away. But President 
Roosevelt, to his great credit, had the courage to stand up and try to 
find ways to help those who were willing to stand in Hitler's way.
  Now is the time to recognize that once a person becomes President of 
the United States and becomes Commander in Chief, there is an awesome 
responsibility, and particularly after the events of September 11 of 
last year, we have to recognize that as Commander in Chief he needs our 
support. Politics in my mind has always stopped at the water's edge. We 
ought to be united behind our President when he is dealing with 
problems such as Saddam Hussein. We certainly ought to be united in 
terms of voicing the sentiment that the United Nations must stand up 
and be counted this time.
  Sixteen times. How many times does he have to go to the well before 
he finds out that he must comply with these U.N. mandates? There is 
enough evidence out there now that Saddam Hussein has failed to comply 
with the mandates that give rise to a world coalition to contain him. 
We thought we already had.
  We have our Coast Guard stopping ships going into the station. We 
have pilots flying over the two no-fly zones every day. And on the 
ground he has palaces all over the place and will not let anyone know 
what is in them.
  Mr. WARNER. Might I add that those pilots to whom the Senator 
referred, American and Great Britain, were shot at 60 times in just the 
month of September alone and they have been at it now for over a 
decade. It is the only enforcement of any resolution undertaken by any 
of the member nations. It is the United States, Great Britain, and at 
one time France. They have now discontinued. That is the only 
enforcement of any resolution.
  Mr. STEVENS. I have spoken to those young pilots at the Prince Sultan 
airbase in Saudi Arabia and at our offices in Kuwait and even in 
London. Many of our own pilots who flew those missions day in and day 
out did not reenlist. They just got tired of the stress of flying over 
the no-fly zone and being shot at daily by missiles that are capable of 
downing their aircraft.
  Thank God we have some of the systems to defend against those 
missiles, but the U.N. has absolutely had blinders on. They have not 
even seen that. Both British and American pilots are shot at daily by 
this person. Why? Because they are flying over no-fly zones. They have 
every right under international law to be there because Saddam Hussein 
agreed they could be there.
  Mr. WARNER. In writing.
  Mr. STEVENS. In writing.
  He is shooting missiles at them every day.
  It is high time we did away with that concept that the area of 
Baghdad is off limits. If they down an airplane, I don't think there is 
any question in the world we should declare war against them because he 
has violated the United Nations agreement he entered into himself. The 
idea of allowing him to shoot at pilots day in and day out with 
impunity is totally beyond my comprehension.
  Mr. WARNER. The purpose of this resolution is to prevent a pilot from 
being downed. If we are resolute in this Chamber, if we clearly show, 
not only to the American public but to the whole world, that we stand 
arm in arm with our President, no daylight between us which can be 
exploited by Saddam Hussein and perhaps weak nations--if we are arm in 
arm, it is the extent to which this United Nations is more likely to 
fulfill its obligations under the charter and, hopefully, devise a 
resolution which can bring about an inspection regime which has teeth 
in it this time, and make it very clear if Saddam Hussein's regime does 
not live up to it, then member nations such as ours and others in the 
coalition can utilize and resort to force.
  Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, the Senator is absolutely correct. The 
real problem is until the members of the United Nations know we mean 
business, they are not going to come and join a coalition. It takes 
money, it takes time, it takes commitment, it takes internal debates 
like this in every democracy. But the necessity is there for us to tell 
the world we are ready. We are ready to bring an end to this man's 
deceitful action against the world. But until we do, who is going to 
join a coalition until they know the superpower is really in there? We 
have to put our money on the table first. We have to put our hand out 
there to anyone who is ready to join this coalition, to say: We are 
there. Are you with us or not? If you are not, then you are not part of 
history, as far as I am concerned. History will read the nations who 
stood together and stopped Saddam Hussein, saved the world, as well as 
those who joined with us in World War II saved the world.
  I think this threat is even worse, though, than the one we faced. It 
is the most awesome thing possible, the more I learn about these 
weapons he has, weapons of mass destruction that can be deployed and 
used in so many ways. To think a person is there who has been willing 
to use them against Iran, against his own people, the Kurds. I still 
believe some of the problems our people had in the Persian Gulf war 
came from his testing some of those weapons. There is no question in my 
mind.
  Mr. WARNER. My colleague is absolutely right. Now with the 
transportability of some of those weapons of mass destruction, and if 
he were to place them in the hands of the international terrorist 
ring--I don't say he hasn't done it already. We don't have the specific 
knowledge--that is an imminent danger to the United States.
  But you concluded on history. I would like to read one brief 
statement. June 1936, Haile Selassie, Emperor of Abyssinia--Ethiopia 
today--in an appeal to the League of Nations.

       I assert that the problem submitted to the Assembly today 
     is a much wider one. It is not merely a question of the 
     settlement of Italian aggression. It is a collective 
     security. It is the very essence of the League of Nations. It 
     is the confidence that each state is to place in 
     international treaties. It is the value of promises made to 
     small states that their integrity and their independence 
     shall be respected and ensured. It is the principle of 
     equality of states on the one hand, or otherwise the 
     obligation laid upon small powers to accept the bonds of 
     vassalship. In a word, it is international morality that is 
     at stake. Do the signatures appended to a treaty have value 
     only insofar as the signatory powers have a personal, direct 
     and immediate interest involved?

  The rest is history. The League did nothing but debate and debate and 
did nothing. And this country perished.
  We are at that juncture now, I say respectfully to the United 
Nations. Will they fall into the dustbin of history as did the League?
  I thank my colleague.
  Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, the Senator and I are of another 
generation. There is no question about that. I never thought I would 
live to see the day I would say there is no question in my mind this is 
a greater threat than what we faced when we were young. But we had 
time. There was time to adjust. Even in the Persian Gulf war, we had 
time to take the actions that were necessary to evict Saddam Hussein's 
likes from Kuwait.
  But now it is not a matter of time. I am convinced the clock is 
ticking on the world as far as this threat is concerned. These are 
weapons of mass destruction. Even one of them should lead a person to 
have some fear. The only thing we can do is to join together with the 
world.
  Someone said to me the other day we can't do it alone. Whoever said 
that is absolutely right. This is not something

[[Page 19224]]

one nation can do alone. But this is something where one nation can 
lead. That is what is happening right now. We must lead. We must form 
this coalition, and we must convince the U.N. to be a part of that 
coalition and to be firm. And this time--this time, to know either they 
enforce those mandates that come from the U.N., or we will lead the 
world to enforce them. It must be done.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, we thank our colleague. The advancement of 
technology is what makes things different. The advances of technology 
are what underlies this doctrine of preemptive strike, which our 
President says must be addressed now, not only by our Nation, but other 
nations that wish to protect themselves and their own security. That is 
a very important issue, and I give great credit to this President for 
having the courage to bring to the forefront of the world--not just the 
United States, but the forefront of the world--the threats we face with 
now rapid technology and the development of weapons of mass 
destruction.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Utah.
  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I want to praise my two learned, worthy 
colleagues who have done so much through the years to make sure our 
country is free and many areas of the world are free as well. I want to 
associate myself with their remarks.
  I was particularly impressed with the remarks of the distinguished 
Senator from Alaska, whom we all revere and respect, and, I might add, 
particularly with the remarks of the distinguished Senator from 
Virginia. I was very aware of the Abyssinia problem--now we call it 
Ethiopia. I think his point is well taken. I would just like to 
associate myself with the remarks of both of my dear colleagues.
  I ask unanimous consent I be allowed to use such time as I need.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, this week, as we know, we debate the most 
serious topic Congress can ever face, whether we will authorize the 
President to use force to address a looming threat to our national 
security. Right here and now I wish to say I will support this 
President, should he determine we need to deploy the military of the 
United States to force Iraq into compliance with the resolutions of the 
international community requiring it--transparently and permanently--to 
disarm itself of weapons of mass destruction.
  If this requires the removal of Saddam Hussein from power, as I 
believe it will, I will support this President's policy of regime 
change, and I respectfully urge my colleagues to join me. It may be 
early in our Senate debate on this resolution, but we have been 
discussing our policy options for years. The President and his advisers 
have regularly consulted with us, with our allies, with the 
international community, and with the American public. As a result, I 
believe this administration will act with a coalition of willing 
nations, fully within the boundaries of international law, with the 
support of this Congress, and with the support and prayers of the 
American people.
  I am honored to have served the people of Utah for 26 years. Utahans 
are a patriotic people. Almost all, Republicans and Democrats, will 
support the President of the United States when he makes his final 
determination the vital interests of this country are at risk and we 
must take military action to protect those vital interests. Tonight the 
President will make that case before the American people, and we will 
all listen intently to his words.
  As a Senator who represents the interests of Utah but also the 
interests of our country, I know a decision on the use of force is the 
most serious consideration I can make because the costs may be measured 
by the ultimate sacrifice of good Americans. I make this decision with 
the deepest of study and prayer, and I offer my prayers to support any 
President who must make such a final decision.
  President Bush has acted conscientiously and openly in determining 
his administration's policy toward Iraq. I do not understand criticisms 
of this administration as being secretive, unilateral, militaristic, 
and uncooperative. From my perspective, none of these adjectives 
represent an objective reality. President Bush has warned us of the 
threat from Saddam Hussein's Iraq since he stepped into the national 
spotlight during the Presidential campaign. I was there. He has been 
expressing what most observers, expert analysts, and honest brokers 
have long recognized.
  Iraq has broken all of its pledges to cooperate with the 
international community and disarm;
  Iraq has refused to allow international inspectors since 1998;
  Iraq has never completely accounted for materials used for weapons of 
mass destruction, specifically biological and chemical weapons, since 
its defeat in 1991;
  Iraq has violated every U.N. resolution passed since 1991;
  Iraq has repeatedly fired on U.S. and allied aircraft patrolling the 
northern and southern ``no-fly'' zones;
  Saddam Hussein has continued to threaten his neighbors and has never 
ceased his hostile rhetoric toward the United States;
  And, Iraq has never proven to the international community that it has 
abandoned its pursuit of nuclear weapons.
  In fact, as a member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, 
I can tell you Iraq has never really abandoned that.
  Charges that the President has been unilateralist are completely 
unfounded. The pace of diplomatic activity conducted by administration 
officials in the capitals of our friends and allies, as well as in 
Geneva and in New York, is as active as any administration's diplomacy 
in modern times. Every day there is another respectful consultation, as 
the President's Secretaries of State and Defense, and the National 
Security Adviser's team, have repeatedly demonstrated.
  The President's speech before the United Nations 1 day and 1 year 
after September 11 was the most eloquent and forceful presentation of a 
U.S. President before that body.
  His appeal was ethical and it was logical. He stood before the body 
of the international community and he said:

       The United States stands with you behind the resolutions 
     that are the core reason for this body's existence.
       If this body is to mean anything, the President logically 
     implored, then this body must stand behind the resolutions 
     that Iraq is flaunting today.
       Never before has a President made such a dramatic and 
     persuasive appeal before the U.N.
       Never before has the U.N. been confronted with such a clear 
     choice: Stand by what you say . . . . . . or stand aside in 
     irrelevance.

  The President has consulted with every Member of Congress, and with 
most of us many times.
  His representatives have dutifully and constructively testified 
before numerous of our committees, and they have always been available 
for more discussions when needed.
  While the Constitution gives the foreign policy-making prerogative to 
the executive branch, I have always thought it sound judgment that a 
President voluntarily seek support and authorization from the U.S. 
Congress.
  Clearly, that is what this President has done with numerous 
consultations over the past weeks, including discussions that have 
culminated in this resolutions we will debate this week.
  This administration has respectfully included the public in this most 
serious of deliberations. Virtually all of these presentations, 
testimonies, and speeches have been done in the public eye.
  While a few congressional briefings have had to be conducted in 
closed settings due to the necessary review of classified materials, 
the arguments and most of the evidence for the determination of this 
administration's policy on Iraq have been there for the public to 
judge.
  The President's speech tonight will crystalize for the American 
people the important decision before us.
  In the past 2 weeks, there have been a few partisan eruptions.
  I believe we should never shirk from debate, and I believe that the 
matters of war and peace must be thoroughly

[[Page 19225]]

debated as long as we recognize that, in the world of human affairs, 
there is no perfect wisdom, particularly of how the future will unfold.
  But let us not presume there are limits to good faith.
  There is not a single Democrat or Republican who glibly supports a 
decision that may have the consequence of shedding blood.
  And there is no Democrat or Republican who would ever seek to 
jeopardize the national security of this country by refusing to engage 
a threat that is looming.
  The decision to go to war cannot, must not, ever be a function of 
politics.
  In 1996, I warned that Osama bin Laden was a threat to this country. 
Bin Laden's activities had been of concern to a few prior to this. But, 
in that year, a number of interviews and articles with this man led me 
to conclude that he had large and evil intentions. I believed that he 
would distinguish himself from other terrorists by taking his 
grievances out of his homeland and his region and that some day--at a 
time we could not predetermine--he would be a threat to this country.
  I cannot raise this point with any pride. I warned about bin Laden, 
and many good people in the intelligence and law enforcement agencies 
began to respond to this growing threat.
  For reasons the historians will someday study, based in part on the 
inquiries we have already begun, we did not stop bin Laden. And he 
brought the terrorism war home to us.
  Two years later after I first warned about bin Laden, he attacked two 
U.S. embassies in the same morning, destroying buildings, and killing 
American diplomats and their families, as well as hundreds of Africans 
in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam.
  A few days later, the President addressed the Nation, telling us he 
had responded to the Africa attacks by bin Laden with cruise missiles 
against Sudan and Afghanistan.
  While some raced to criticize him for ``wagging the dog'' trying to 
distance himself from the unfolding drama of his personal troubles I 
personally spoke out and approved of the President's initiative.
  I was in Salt Lake at the time. Because I had raised bin Laden so 
many times and had become thoroughly involved in trying to help the 
President with some of his problems, they interviewed me there, and I 
said at that time that he did the right thing, but I also said he 
should follow up and not just do it once.
  We were attacked and the U.S. had to respond, because if we did not 
respond, our passivity would invite further attacks.
  I also urged the President not to let that be a single set of 
strikes. I knew that any response we made short of eliminating the 
threat of bin Laden would embolden bin Laden.
  Since the days after September 11, I have often thought of those key 
moments in the late 1990s. I do so not to cast blame. The lives lost in 
New York, at the Pentagon, and in that Pennsylvania countryside will 
always be a reminder of how we failed to anticipate, failed to respond, 
failed to eliminate a threat we knew was out there.
  But let these not be lessons lost.
  The lives lost in New York, Washington, Pennsylvania, and in our 
campaign in Afghanistan demonstrate that if we are not prepared to 
engage an enemy before he strikes us then we must accept that we will 
pay a cost for pursuing him afterward.
  To me and to many Utahns and citizens throughout the Nation, the 
lesson of September 11 is: do not wait for your enemy to attack--
especially when he has access to weapons of mass destruction.
  If you have evidence of your enemy's capabilities and with Saddam 
Hussein we do and if you have evidence of his enmity and with Saddam 
Hussein we do--then do not err on the side of wishful thinking. With 
enemies with the destructive capabilities of Saddam Hussein, we must be 
hard-headed.
  The administration has argued that Saddam's Iraq poses a threat, a 
threat that must be eliminated. If we cannot eliminate the threat of 
weapons of mass destruction through coercive, thorough and 
comprehensive inspections backed by the threat of force supported by 
the international community--then the U.S. must seek to build our own 
coalition of willing nations to disarm Iraq by force and allow for a 
regime that will replace Saddam and return Iraq to the community of 
nations.
  I believe the President should continue to work with the 
international community to seek ways to disarm Iraq short of military 
intervention. Military force should never be our first course of 
action.
  But I will not support a resolution that conditions our authorization 
on actions by the United Nations.
  Such a move would set a precedent over sovereign decisions conducted 
by this country to defend its national interests.
  Supporting such language would, in my opinion, infringe upon the 
constitutional prerogative that resides with the President to conduct 
and manage the Nation's foreign policy.
  Congress must resist attempts to micromanage a war effort.
  The resolution we debate today is an authorization. But, the timing 
and modalities of action need to be--and must be controlled by the 
administration, with consultation wherever possible, so long as that 
consultation does not hamper the war effort.
  Traditional geopolitics requires us to think about national security 
in categories of our interests.
  Our vital interests are defined as the security of our homeland and 
our way of life; we must defend them at any costs, and we must be 
willing to defend them alone, if necessary.
  There are areas of vital national interest to this country, that if 
they were threatened or succumbed to hostile control, would jeopardize 
our homeland or our way of life.
  They are: the Western Hemisphere; Japan; Europe; and the Persian 
Gulf.
  Saddam Hussein continues to threaten the stability of the Persian 
Gulf. From this perspective, I believe that the frightening 
capabilities of Saddam's chemical and biological weapons pose a threat 
to the region, and to the stability of the Gulf, and therefore to our 
vital national interests.
  In addition, nontraditional geopolitics recognizes that international 
phenomena other than nation states must be considered when assessing 
the national security of the United States.
  Terrorism is the number one non-traditional threat to the U.S. today. 
This may seem obvious after September 11. It was not obvious enough 
before September 11.
  The American people know that we are at war with al-Qaida.
  The American people recognize that never again can we be complacent 
about threats to this country and our interests.
  And the American people understand that this war on al-Qaida cannot 
be used as an excuse to ignore other grave threats, such as the threat 
that Iraq continues to pose.
  We should not assume that Saddam Hussein will politely stand in line 
behind al-Qaida.
  With the questions remaining about Iraq's weapons of mass 
destruction, with too many suggestions of Iraq's ties with terrorists, 
and with no question about Iraq's animosity to the United States, and 
other countries as well, including many in the Middle East, should the 
United States consider an option of doing nothing, or too little, as we 
did with al-Qaida before September 11?
  Perhaps, as a result of the diplomatic pressure building on Saddam 
Hussein in recent days, his regime will comply with a forceful and 
comprehensive international inspection regime.
  However, we should not for a single moment forget Saddam's history of 
obfuscation and delay. His record of noncompliance is 100 percent. Any 
inspection regime which we agree to support must complete the actions 
required in all Security Council resolutions, including the ones being 
drafted now, that would demand compliance with inspections or face the 
use of force.
  Some have suggested that a war on Iraq would be the beginning of a 
radical doctrine of preemption--that we are now setting a precedent for 
unilateral military action against regimes that we find odious.

[[Page 19226]]

  The idea of ``preemption'' is as old as Grotius, the father of 
international law, who wrote in the 17th century.
  U.S. policymakers have never foresworn the option of preemption, and 
have never seen the U.N. Charter as restricting the use of preemption 
in the event of a threat to our national security. There are many 
examples of this thinking in both Republican and Democratic 
administrations.
  Recall that U.S. nuclear doctrine never adopted a no-first-use 
policy.
  Nor is the policy decision we are facing today opening up a new, 
militaristic, and unilateral approach to dealing with other countries 
with which we have conflicts.
  Some have suggested that, if we authorize the use of force against 
Iraq, we are automatically implying that we support the use of force 
against the other two countries in the ``axis of evil'' termed by the 
President.
  Today, the administration is using diplomacy to control the ongoing 
confrontation on the Korean Peninsula.
  And while Iran remains a geopolitical threat, as it continues to fund 
terrorists operating in the Middle East, and is extending its influence 
in Afghanistan, the political foment within Iran is also providing a 
challenge to that Islamic fundamentalist dictatorship, as more and more 
Iranians seek to overthrow their corrupt and repressive tyranny.
  Despite some leftist revisionist histories, America has always been 
reluctant to use force overseas. As a democracy, we are imbued with 
values of caution and respect for human rights, reluctance and a desire 
to let other nations choose their own paths.
  But the world changed for us on September 11, 2001.
  The American people are patient, but we should never let that 
patience be used against us. As the President has said, if we are to 
wait until we have definite proof that Iraq intends to use weapons of 
mass destruction against us, then it may be too late.
  For too long, we were hesitant to attack al-Qaida, presuming that 
they would never dare to attack us in the heart of our financial 
center, at the core of our defense establishment, in the openness of 
our commercial airways. We were wrong.
  Can we accept the consequences of being wrong with Saddam Hussein's 
Iraq?
  If this Congress authorizes the use of force, and if the President 
concludes that force is the only option in removing Saddam Hussein from 
power and disarming Iraq of weapons of mass destruction, then I believe 
that every member of this body will fully support our President and our 
Armed Forces.
  Iraq has been in a dangerous geopolitical limbo since Saddam Hussein 
was ejected from Kuwait in 1991, and then left to oppress his people 
over the ensuing decade.
  If the United States must act to remove Saddam Hussein, we must be 
committed to help reconstruct Iraq. This will take sustained policy 
focus. The U.S. will, once again, pay for a large portion of the costs 
of war. We would expect our allies to pay for a large portion of the 
reconstruction.
  U.S. policy must commit to the long-term stability of Iraq. We must 
work with the various Iraqi ethnic groups to build their own vision of 
a tolerant, educated, modern Iraq. Many of the Iraqi people have a 
history of valuing education, modernity and multiethnic society. We 
must commit to staying in Iraq until the basic institutions that will 
provide long-term stability are built.
  A stable, tolerant, modern Iraq may transform the Arab Middle East. 
Other traditional states will have to explain to their own peoples why 
they hesitate to grant democratic rights and privileges, basic human 
rights, and respect for women, if an Iraqi government were to arise 
from the repression of Saddam to blossom as an example of tolerance and 
modernity.
  If we commit to the liberation of the Iraqi people, and we assist 
them in rising out of decades of Saddam Hussein's depredations, the 
whole world will be able to see that the Arab world is not predestined 
to tyranny, radical regimes, anti-Western hatred, willful ignorance.
  I believe that this is President Bush's vision. The President 
understands that the use of force against Saddam Hussein--if it comes 
to this--will be the beginning of the end--not just of that dictator's 
brutal reign, but also of nearly a century of Arab despotism.
  I pray that Saddam Hussein capitulates to the international community 
and allows unfettered and comprehensive inspections, and that he 
removes himself from power or is removed by some brave Iraqi.
  But if we are not so fortunate, I pray Godspeed for our men and women 
in the military when they, once again, go beyond our shores to protect 
those of us within them.
  Mr. President, I again thank our very fine leader on our side and 
others on the other side for their efforts in this regard, for the 
support they have for this country, for our President, and for doing 
what is right.
  I personally respect the distinguished Senator from Virginia very 
much. I have watched him through the years work with both sides, trying 
to bring people together and to accomplish the best things for our 
country. I personally express my respect for him here today.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I thank our colleague for his kind 
comments, and also for his important statement he has delivered to the 
Senate.
  I want to pick up on one thing that the Senator mentioned, and there 
has not been as much discussion as yet on this subject. It is a very 
important one.
  The President has repeatedly said the use of force is the last 
option. But should that be taken, and there be force used by presumably 
our country, Great Britain, and hopefully others in the coalition, then 
the responsibility devolves upon those nations, primarily those who use 
force--again, hopefully, the United Nations would take a strong role, 
but that remains to be seen--in trying to reestablish, for the people 
of Iraq, against whom we hold no animosity--the people--a nation 
bringing together the factions in the north, the Kurds, and the 
Shi'ites in the south, and hold that country together.
  But I find, in studying, as my astute colleague will undoubtedly 
believe, as we look at the situation in Kosovo, we had to come in there 
with other nations and help establish the economy, and we are still 
there. Indeed, in South Korea, how well you know we have been there now 
over 50 years.
  It seems to me there are several points with regard to Iraq which 
differentiate the responsibilities of our Nation and other nations 
following such hostility, as hopefully will not occur, but should they 
occur; that is, Iraq, at one time, was an absolute extraordinary 
nation, a nation of well-educated people, a nation which had a number 
of natural resources, primarily petroleum, from whence to gain a 
revenue flow.
  So far as I can determine, much of that infrastructure of 
intellectual people and well-educated, hard-working people and, indeed, 
the oil that is present there, once it is properly cared for and put in 
the competitive world market, it seems to me that the dollars involved 
would be, comparatively speaking, much less because of the natural 
resources, and the problem of reconstructing a government, hopefully, 
would not be as challenging as maybe some say because of the presence 
of such a fine citizenry, almost all of whom, not all, have been 
severely depressed by Saddam Hussein and the brutality of his regime.
  Does the Senator share those thoughts?
  Mr. HATCH. I do. Our intelligence shows that the Iraqi people know 
they are repressed, that there are many of them who wish things would 
change, but there is such repression that they are afraid to strike 
out, afraid to speak out, or afraid to react in ways other than the way 
the current leadership in Iraq wants them to react.
  This is a very important country. It has tremendous resources, 
resources that are fully capable of helping that country to resuscitate 
itself, to reconstruct. Those resources are being ripped off of the 
Iraqi people right now by Saddam Hussein and others around

[[Page 19227]]

him. They are being spent on matters that really do not benefit the 
country of Iraq, and they are being spent on matters that do not uplift 
the aspirations and hopes of the people in Iraq.
  As we all know, there is no question that if we could get rid of this 
repressive regime, Iraq could become a real player in the Middle East 
and help everybody in the world to understand that Islam is not a 
religion of destruction. It is not a religion of warfare in particular. 
It is a very good religion with tremendous ethics and responsible 
approaches towards life and towards living in the world community.
  Nor do I agree with some of our critics in the evangelical movement 
in this country who have been outspoken in their criticism of Islam, 
blaming the radical elements of Islam, who are not the majority, for 
many of the things that are going on, that are reprehensible, including 
the Osama bin Laden group, al-Qaida, and so many other terrorist 
groups.
  The Senator is absolutely right. We believe, and our intelligence 
shows, that Iraq could become a major player in world affairs, a major 
construct for good, if it had different leadership and if the people 
had the privilege of democratic principles.
  I thank my colleague because he has been pointing out all day, as he 
has served here, very important nuances upon which every one of us 
should take more time to reflect.
  Mr. WARNER. I thank my distinguished colleague. He has many years of 
experience in the Senate. His wisdom is being brought to bear on this 
critical issue. All of us feel a weight on our shoulders, the 
importance of this debate, and the importance of the vote we will cast. 
If there was ever a vote that would be clearly a matter of conscience 
between all of us, this is it.
  Mr. HATCH. I thank my colleague.
  Mr. WARNER. I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nebraska.
  Mr. WARNER. I see our valued colleague on the Senate Armed Services 
Committee. I look forward to hearing his remarks.
  Mr. NELSON of Nebraska. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from 
Virginia for the opportunity to be here today and for his close 
attention to these matters of war and these matters of peace that so 
often come before us on the U.S. Armed Services Committee, and for his 
counsel and wisdom. I thank him so much.
  I rise today to discuss our Nation's Iraq policy, and the resolution 
we are now debating. This resolution could give the President the power 
to send the United States Armed Services into a military conflict with 
Iraq.
  As I am sure most of my colleagues will agree, for the U.S. Congress 
there is no more important debate than one that involves a decision 
that may lead to loss of life of our brave men and women in uniform.
  It is without question that Saddam Hussein poses a threat to the 
Middle East, our allies in the region, and our international interests 
that include rebuilding Afghanistan and making peace between the 
Israelis and Palestinians.
  Saddam has refused to comply with United Nations resolutions that 
were the basis for a cease-fire during the Persian Gulf war in 1991. He 
agreed to those terms in order to prevent the multinational coalition 
from proceeding into Iraq and removing him from power by force.
  Throughout most of the 1990s Saddam was held in check through U.N. 
weapons inspectors, a naval blockade and United States and allied air 
patrols over the southern and northern areas of Iraq.
  During that time the U.N. inspectors uncovered Saddam's chemical and 
biological programs and dismantled those they located. However, since 
1998, Saddam has not allowed U.N. weapons inspections.
  Now, nearly 4 years have passed with no outside reporting on progress 
made in Saddam's chemical, biological, or nuclear programs. Moreover, 
we know that Saddam recently attempted to purchase aluminum rods used 
to refine uranium. These rods could be used to develop materials for 
nuclear weapons.
  President Bush and his advisers have determined that Saddam Hussein's 
quest for weapons of mass destruction must end now. The President said 
in his speech before the U.N. that Saddam poses an immediate, unchecked 
threat to our Nation and our allies, and unless we act now his arsenal 
will only grow.
  Any resolution on action involving Iraq that the United States 
Congress would approve must focus on the imperative of disarmament of 
Iraq.
  By disarming Saddam and removing his nuclear, biological and chemical 
capability, he will pose no strategic threat to the United States or 
our allies. Saddam would be contained.
  If, in order to disarm Iraq, we need to use military force that 
results in the removal of the current regime, then we should do so. 
Saddam Hussein must know that the United States will support President 
Bush's use of force to remove him, if he does not comply with orders to 
disarm and destroy all weapons of mass destruction.
  The President has suggested that ``regime change'' may be the only 
way Iraq will comply with the 16 existing U.N. resolutions. However, a 
resolution whose primary focus is ``regime change'' does not address 
the fact that the next regime in Iraq, even if it is more friendly to 
the United States, would inherit all weapons systems and programs that 
the United States did not destroy.
  Additionally, if we pursue ``regime change'' as an objective, we will 
severely limit our ability to form a multinational coalition of support 
as President Bush's father did so successfully during the gulf war.
  Our allies worldwide have expressed support for disarming Saddam, but 
little enthusiasm for regime change.
  Alone among President Bush's advisers, Secretary of State Colin 
Powell has suggested that putting weapons inspectors back in and making 
sure they can do their job is the proper avenue to pursue.
  The heart of this resolution should outline precisely what access 
weapons inspectors should be afforded as they inspect the Iraqi 
military capabilities. It should demand complete transparency of 
Saddam's military inventory, and unrestricted and unfettered access to 
all of Iraq by U.N. weapons inspectors, including the presidential 
palaces.
  In concert with a focus on disarmament, a congressional resolution 
should also strongly urge the President to exhaust all diplomatic 
efforts within and outside the United Nations. Total disarmament of 
Iraq should be a multinational effort.
  Nevertheless we must reserve the right, and give the President the 
authority, to act unilaterally provided the presence of an immediate 
and grave threat to the United States.
  This congressional resolution should not give the President an 
immediate and unconditional pass to wage war, but should place an 
emphasis on his diplomatic effort to resolve the issue of disarmament 
without loss of life.
  If Saddam's defiance leads to war, we must also focus on what will 
need to be accomplished after the war in order to ensure stability in 
the region.
  More thought must be given to the effort that will be required to 
maintain peace and provide for the Iraqi people in the event that 
Saddam fails to resolve this issue peacefully.
  We seek no quarrel with the people of Iraq and the international 
community must be prepared to assist them. It is an endeavor that the 
United States should not undertake alone which, in my opinion, 
strengthens the need for any use of force to be multilateral.
  As a member of the Armed Services Committee, I have heard many hours 
of testimony from administration officials outlining their case for 
war. But I fear we have not yet heard enough about what Iraq will look 
like when the smoke clears.
  I am willing to debate and support a resolution that has the 
characteristics that I have mentioned, but there needs to be equal 
debate and thought into how we will leave Iraq and what kind of 
commitment we are willing to give.
  This resolution will serve as Saddam's last chance at a peaceful 
conclusion to his years of defiance of international law if it meets 
these conditions: The primary objective of the

[[Page 19228]]

United States is the disarmament of Iraq rather than regime change; the 
United States will work to establish international support and 
cooperation and exhaust all diplomatic avenues before going it alone in 
Iraq; and the United Nations weapons inspectors will be allowed 
unfettered access to inspect Iraqi weapons systems and facilities and 
they will be supported by armed U.N. troops.
  With these objectives, the United States will demonstrate that we 
seek a peaceful and diplomatic solution, but if diplomacy fails the 
United States will take every measure necessary to defend our country, 
our allies, and our interests. This is our responsibility to our 
national security, our international interests, our citizens, and the 
people of the world.
  I thank the Chair. I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Nelson of Nebraska). The Senator from 
Virginia is recognized.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I thank our colleague for his contribution 
to this debate. Listening to him, as I have to all the others who have 
spoken today, underscores the importance of each Senator hoping to 
contribute to this debate.
  My understanding is the leadership will announce shortly the 
intention to have periods tomorrow that this debate can take place. I 
hope we will experience tomorrow as robust and important debate as we 
have had today on the floor.
  I yield the floor, and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, the order that has been guiding us all day 
continuing until 4 o'clock was the time be equally divided between the 
two leaders, and that Senators have up to 15 minutes to speak on the 
Iraq resolution. We have done a good job in doing that.
  I ask unanimous consent that any Senators who wish to come yet today, 
before we adjourn for the evening, still be guided by the 15-minute 
limitation. Senator Daschle and I have spoken about this, and I am sure 
Senator Lott would agree--although I have not spoken with him--that we 
would be well advised that Tuesday we are going to be very busy, with a 
lot of people speaking. Senators who wish to speak would be well 
advised to notify their respective cloakrooms. So people will not have 
to wait all day for their turn, we can set up a sequence. If an equal 
number of Democrats and Republicans wish to speak, we will alternate, 
and that way we can have an orderly debate and move on to the ultimate 
disposition at a subsequent time.
  Mr. WARNER. I think I can speak for our leadership on that. That is a 
constructive observation. I am sure my distinguished colleague would 
think almost all 100 Senators will want, at one point in time prior to 
the vote, to express themselves on this important issue. So that will 
result in a considerable amount of the Senate's time. It is the most 
important thing before us. I think that is wise counsel.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, Senator Byrd asked me if I would clear a 
unanimous consent request in regard to this matter with him. So I ask 
that everyone be recognized for 15 minutes, and I am sure he will agree 
to a reasonable time. I don't have his permission now. So I will 
reiterate my unanimous consent request, with the exception of Senator 
Byrd.
  I also ask Senators who wish to speak to get word to their 
cloakrooms, and we can set up a time for them to speak during the day.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? Without objection, it is 
so ordered.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I have just been advised possibly someone 
on our side might want some additional time, and the matter will be 
managed here by the designees, the respective leaders. I have offered 
to work with Senator Lott, and he accepted that offer. There may be 
others who want more time. We will try to facilitate the management of 
the floor.
  My point is those Senators who might desire to exceed 15 minutes, I 
am sure the Senate will consider why they need that additional time.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, as usual, our staff saw a possible problem 
with this. So what I think would be best to do is just not worry about 
Senator Byrd. We will have this limitation apply for the rest of the 
evening and until 12:30 tomorrow when we go into the party conferences.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that any further speeches 
tonight on the Iraq matter be limited to 15 minutes, and that when we 
come in tomorrow morning to go on the Iraq matter, the speeches be 
limited to 15 minutes until 12:30.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, it is my understanding it will be around 
10 o'clock.
  Mr. REID. It will be 9 or 10 o'clock.
  Mr. WARNER. I thank our colleague.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I am going to depart the floor. I see no 
colleague on either side wishing to address further the debate on Iraq, 
although the opportunity has been offered.
  I ask unanimous consent at the conclusion of my brief remarks an 
article that appeared today in the Washington Post be printed in 
today's Record.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  (See exhibit 1.)
  The article is well composed in the sense it asks eight questions of 
those participating in the Iraqi debate about issues at the heart of 
what we are discussing. I hope by including it in the Record it is more 
readily available to colleagues as they work on their remarks. These 
are the very questions I encountered this weekend and last weekend as I 
traveled in my State. I daresay, other Senators will be asked these 
questions by their constituents and therefore this article is very 
helpful.
  I will not pick up without specifically pointing to those provisions 
which prompt me to do so. I pick up comments to the effect by others 
that if Saddam Hussein does this, then everything will be one way or 
the other. If he does not do that, then this will happen, one way or 
the other. I call it the doctrine of giving Saddam Hussein the benefit 
of the doubt. I urge colleagues to think about that because we are 
dealing with an individual who is extremely complex, at the least. 
People are trying to read his mind. Speaking for myself, I have no 
capability of reading his mind. Nor do I ever predicate action I take 
or support on what he might do if he does this. I can't follow that 
line of reasoning. Therefore, I do not subscribe to giving the benefit 
of the doubt to Saddam Hussein.
  What dictates my views about this man is the clear record that he 
used poison gas against his own population, his own citizens of Iraq. 
It is reputed, and I think it is well documented, he has actually 
beheaded individuals who have stood up to disagree with him. So I 
somehow feel he has not earned a place in leadership that you can, in 
any way, pontificate about, or figure out what he might do. I think we 
have to decide as a free Nation what we are going to do, and urge the 
United Nations to lay that out very clearly in a resolution that leaves 
no doubt, gives no benefit of the doubt to him as to what he might do. 
We should plan a course of decisive action because our very future is 
dependent upon, hopefully, the United Nations taking such actions as 
are necessary, clearly, to enforce their resolutions and such 
additional resolution--and I hope it is only one--as they may devise.
  I yield the floor.

[[Page 19229]]



                               Exhibit 1

Debate Over Iraq Focuses on Outcome--Multiple Scenarios Drive Questions 
                               About War

                         (By David Von Drehle)

       Congress plans this week to debate a joint resolution that 
     would give President Bush broad powers to disarm Iraq--
     including the authority to invade the country and depose 
     President Saddam Hussein.
       The resolution is expected to pass easily, in part because 
     leading Democrats want to get the issue of war behind them, 
     and in part because there is widespread agreement on Capitol 
     Hill that Hussein must be dealt with. ``We begin with the 
     common belief that Saddam Hussein is a tyrant and a threat to 
     the peace and stability of the Middle East,'' said Sen. Carl 
     M. Levin (D-Mich.), chairman of the Armed Services Committee.
       There is also general agreement that if it comes to war, 
     the United States will win.
       But beyond this first level of agreement lie major disputes 
     over important questions--about the alternatives to war, the 
     timing and, most of all, the outcomes. The debate in Congress 
     is likely to distill these disputes.
       And although these questions may not be answerable without 
     a crystal ball--experts have already debated them without 
     researching consensus in congressional hearings, op-ed and 
     journal articles, speeches and interviews--they frame the 
     risks and the assumptions of the U.S. approach.
       Here are eight of the most important questions:
       (1) Can Hussein be ``contained'' and ``deterred''?
       For more than 50 years of the Cold War, the United States 
     faced an enemy armed with thousands of high-yield bombs 
     mounted on sophisticated missiles and managed to avoid a 
     direct military confrontation. How? By ``containing'' the 
     enemy--that is, trying to prevent communist expansion--and 
     ``deterring'' attacks with threats of apocalyptic 
     retaliation.
       Some experts believe that this strategy, applied 
     aggressively, can work with Iraq. After all, continued 
     containment and deterrence is the U.S. policy for dealing 
     with Iran, which is widely believed to be more advanced in 
     nuclear capability and deeply involved in supporting 
     terrorists. Brent Scowcroft, the national security adviser to 
     then-President George H.W. Bush, recently argued that 
     ``Saddam is a familiar . . . traditional'' case, ``unlikely 
     to risk his investment in weapons of mass destruction, much 
     less his country, by handing such weapons to terrorists'' or 
     by using them for blackmail. ``While Saddam is thoroughly 
     evil, he is above all a power-hungry survivor.''
       Hussein's behavior has not always squared with this view. 
     In 1993, he tried to use secret agents to assassinate George 
     H.W. Bush, and Iraqi guns routinely fire at allied aircraft 
     over the Iraqi ``no-fly'' zones. But proponents of continued 
     containment think there is a line that the Iraqi leader will 
     not cross for fear of the consequences.
       This assumption drives the thinking of figures such as 
     Morton H. Halperin of the Council on Foreign Relations, who 
     advocates a policy of tougher weapons inspections and a more 
     effective embargo on trade with Iraq--``containment-plus,'' 
     as he calls it. This strategy, ``if pursued vigorously . . . 
     will, in fact, succeed in preventing Saddam from using 
     weapons of mass destruction or supplying them to terrorist 
     groups,'' Halperin recently assured Congress.
       But many people, President Bush among them, believe 
     deterrence is no longer enough after the Sept. 11 attacks--
     not when weapons might be delivered secretly to fanatics 
     willing to destroy themselves in an attack. Sen. John W. 
     Warner (R-Va.), the ranking Republic on the Armed Services 
     Committee, put it this way: ``The concept of deterrence that 
     served us well in the 20th century has changed. . . .  Those 
     who would commit suicide in their assaults on the free world 
     are not rational and are not deterred by rational concepts of 
     deterrence.''
       (2) Is Hussein in league with al Qaeda?
       Somewhere, there is a cold, hard answer to this question, 
     but so far, no one has publicly proved it one way or the 
     other. Though administration officials have charged that al 
     Qaeda operatives are living in Iraq, the same is believed to 
     be true of more than 50 other countries. Daniel Benjamin, 
     former director of counterterrorism for the National Security 
     Council, recently argued that secular Iraq and fundamentalist 
     al Qaeda are natural rivals, not co-conspirators.
       But if the answer is yes, it strengthens the case for 
     moving quickly.
       ``We must remove threats such as those [posed by] Saddam 
     Hussein, al Qaeda and other terrorist groups,'' retired Air 
     Force Lt. Gen. Thomas McInerney told a Senate hearing. The 
     same gaps in intelligence gathering that make it hard to know 
     whether Hussein deals with al Qaeda make it dangerous to 
     assume he doesn't, McInerney argued. ``We face an enemy that 
     makes its principal strategy the targeting of civilians. . . 
     . We should not wait to be attacked with weapons of mass 
     destruction.''
       (3) Is disarmament possible without ``regime change''?
       No one in the mainstream believes that Hussein will disarm 
     voluntarily, but some experts--including Secretary of State 
     Colin L. Powell--entertain the possibility that he will if it 
     is his last hope of survival.
       That said, skepticism is very high that the Iraqi weapons 
     problem can be solved while Hussein runs the country. Charles 
     Duelfer, a veteran of previous weapons inspections in Iraq, 
     recently said, ``In my opinion, weapons inspections are not 
     the answer to the real problem, which is the regime.'' 
     Finding and destroying offending weapons now would not 
     prevent the regime from developing new ones after the 
     inspectors have left.
       Even many proponents of renewed U.N. weapons inspections 
     see them mainly as a tool for building international support 
     for war. As retired Gen. Wesley Clark, a former supreme 
     commander of NATO, put it: ``The closer we get to the use of 
     force, the greater the likelihood. And the more we build up 
     the inspections idea, the greater the legitimacy of the 
     United States effort in the eyes of the world.''
       (4) In the event of war, what would Hussein's military do?
       There are two scenarios: one ghastly, one hopeful.
       In the first, his commanders fire chemical and biological 
     weapons into Israel, trying to ignite a pan-Arabic war, and 
     lob gas bombs at approaching U.S. troops. In the other, Iraqi 
     officers refuse to commit such futile war crimes in the face 
     of certain defeat and turn on the dying regime.
       ``Most of the army does not want to fight for Saddam,'' 
     McInerney maintained. ``We are already seeing increasing 
     desertions from the regular army as well as the Republican 
     Guards.'' He cited reports from inside Iraq that Hussein has 
     arrested or executed scores of disaffected officers and won't 
     allow even some elite Republican Guard units into Iraq's 
     cities, for fear of a coup. ``That's why I think there will 
     not be urban fighting.''
       But retired Gen. Joseph Hoar, a former commander in chief 
     of U.S. Central Command, sees it differently. ``The nightmare 
     scenario is that six Iraqi Republican Guard divisions and six 
     heavy divisions, reinforced with several thousand 
     antiaircraft artillery pieces, defend the city of Baghdad. 
     The result would be high casualties on both sides, as well as 
     the civilian community . . . [and] the rest of the world 
     watches while we bomb and have artillery rounds exploded in 
     densely populated Iraqi neighborhoods,'' Hoar testified 
     before Congress. ``It looks like the last 15 minutes of 
     `Saving Private Ryan.'''
       (5) What would the Iraqi people do?
       Again, there are two scenarios (always with the possibility 
     that the truth is somewhere in between).
       One emphasizes the relative sophistication and education of 
     the Iraqi population, and its hatred for Saddam Hussein. 
     These qualities, according to the optimists, would make the 
     Iraqis unwilling to defend him, grateful for the arrival of 
     American liberators and ready to begin building a new, pro-
     Western country as soon as the smoke cleared. ``We shall be 
     greeted, I think, in Baghdad and Basra with kites and boom 
     boxes,'' Arab scholar Fouad Ajami of Johns Hopkins University 
     has predicted.
       The aftermath of the war would not necessarily be chaos, 
     Duelfer has theorized. ``There are national institutions in 
     Iraq that hold the country together: the regular army; 
     there's departments of agriculture, irrigation; there's a 
     civil service.''
       The pessimistic view emphasizes the deep divisions in Iraq. 
     There are Kurds in the oil-rich north, yearning for an 
     independent state. There are Shiite Muslims concentrated in 
     the South and seething at the discrepancy between their large 
     numbers and small influence in Iraq. For all their education 
     and institutions, Iraqis do not have experience with self-
     government. Iraq might trade one despot for another.
       In this scenario, the only thing that would prevent a messy 
     breakup of the former Iraq would be a long American 
     occupation--a prospect the Bush administration has been 
     reluctant to discuss.
       (6) How will the Middle East react to the war and to the 
     subsequent peace?
       This may be the most potent of the unanswered questions. 
     Here, there seems to be agreement that rank-and-file Muslims 
     won't like an American war in Iraq. Michael O'Hanlon, a 
     defense analyst at the Brookings Institution, has referred to 
     the ``al-Jazeera effect''--millions of Muslims watching 
     televised scenes of destruction and death, and blaming the 
     United States. Halperin is one of many who have theorized 
     that al Qaeda recruiters would be inundated. ``Certainly if 
     we move before there is a Palestinian settlement . . . what 
     we will stimulate is a large number of people in the Arab 
     world who will be willing to take up a terrorist attack on 
     the United States and on Americans around the world.''
       Some experts predict that the regional reaction would then 
     go from bad to worse.
       According to Geoffrey Kemp, director of Regional Strategic 
     Studies at the Nixon Center in Yorba Linda, Calif., 
     ``Iranians . . . worry about a failed or messy U.S. operation 
     that would leave the region in chaos. They would then be on 
     the receiving end for possibly millions of new Iraqi Shi'a 
     refugees.'' Mark Parris, a former U.S. ambassador to Iraq's 
     northern neighbor, Turkey, has raised the specter of a war 
     between the Turks and the Kurds over the oil cities of Mosul 
     and Kirkuk. The fragile reign of Jordan's moderate King 
     Abdullah II would be shaken by

[[Page 19230]]

     an expected anti-American reaction among that nation's many 
     Palestinians. Said Kemp: ``The Saudis will ride it out, the 
     Egyptians will ride it out, the Qataris will--but we're all a 
     little worried about the king.'' Against this, there is a 
     school of thought that says a moderate government in Iraq 
     could lead to modernization and liberalization throughout the 
     region. ``A year after [Hussein falls], Iran will get rid of 
     the mullahs,'' McInerney recently predicted. ``The jubilation 
     that you see in Baghdad . . . will change the whole tenor of 
     the world, and the sum of all your fears will disappear, I 
     assure you.''
       (7) Would a military campaign in Iraq help or hurt the war 
     on terrorism?
       Sources as diverse as the conservative Weekly Standard 
     magazine and former president Bill Clinton scoff at the idea 
     that it would be too much to pursue al Qaeda and deal with 
     Iraq simultaneously, both saying: ``The U.S. can walk and 
     chew gum at the same time.'' However, former NATO commander 
     Clark worries about ``a diversion of effort'' on the part of 
     U.S. military and intelligence forces, and Halperin counsels 
     that there is a limit on the number of things government 
     bureaucracies can handle at once.
       But the deeper problem, many believe, is that U.S. action 
     in Iraq could spoil the spirit of cooperation with many 
     nations--including many Arab nations--that is essential to 
     fighting terror.
       To ``drive a stake in the heart of al Qaeda,'' Hoar 
     recently said, it is essential to have ``broad support from 
     our European allies and from our friends in the Arab world.'' 
     Like many experts, he believes that a war in Iraq could dry 
     up that support like fire under a damp skillet.
       On the other hand, retired Gen. John Shalikashvili, a 
     former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff--while insisting 
     on the importance of building more international support for 
     U.S. policy on Iraq--has argued that dealing with Iraq 
     cannot, ultimately, be separated from the war on terror. ``It 
     really falls under the same umbrella,'' he told a Senate 
     committee. ``The war against terrorism isn't just al Qaeda. . 
     . . It is also denying terrorists the means of getting to 
     weapons of mass destruction.''
       (8) In the end, will the United States be more secure?
       One's answer to this question is a sort of scorecard for 
     one's answers to the previous seven. If Hussein is indeed 
     impossible to deter and willing to engage in terror, if a new 
     regime is the only way to eliminate the threat he poses, and 
     if that can be done with a minimum of chaos and relatively 
     few bad consequences--then the case for war might seem 
     strong. Different answers to these questions can change the 
     equation dramatically.
       In the coming debate, Americans will watch scores of 
     elected leaders wrestle with some or all of these disputes, 
     but if the resolution passes, as expected, they will 
     ultimately come to a final calculus on a single desk. As Sen. 
     John D. ``Jay'' Rockefeller IV (D-W. Va.) said last week: 
     ``You don't have all the answers and you never will have all 
     the answers. . . . It rests in the hands of the president of 
     the United States.''
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania.
  Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, while the Senator from Virginia is still 
on the floor, I wonder if he would be willing to have a brief 
discussion on the resolution and the action before the United Nations?
  Mr. WARNER. Yes, I would be privileged to do so.
  Mr. SPECTER. Earlier today I had discussed the considerations on 
conditioning authority for the President to use force on a United 
Nations resolution which called for the use of force, very much like 
the 1991 incident, contrasted with authorization by the Congress for 
the President to use force unilaterally, without a United Nations 
resolution, or perhaps with the assistance of Great Britain. The 
disadvantage, to which I had referred earlier today, on having a 
resolution which required U.N. action is that, in effect, we would be 
subordinate or subject to a veto by China, which is undesirable; 
France--undesirable; Russia--undesirable.
  But the difficulty with authorizing the President to use force 
unilaterally is it might set a precedent for other countries to say 
they could do the same. While these analogies are not perfect, one 
which comes to mind is China on Taiwan, or India on Pakistan, or the 
reverse--Pakistan on India.
  My question to one of the managers of the bill, one of the coauthors 
of the bill, is: Do you see any problem at all on a precedent being 
established if Congress authorizes the President to use force without a 
U.N. resolution to use force, on justifying some action by some other 
country like China and Taiwan, or Pakistan and India, or some other 
situation in the future?
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I say to my distinguished colleague, 
speaking for myself--and I hope the majority of the Senate--in no way 
should this Nation ever subordinate itself in its decision making with 
respect to our national security, to actions or inactions by the United 
Nations.
  Let me just give a wonderful quote that I, in my research on this 
subject, have referred to before. This was October 22, 1962, when our 
Nation, under the leadership of President Kennedy, was faced with the 
looming missile crisis down in Cuba. I know my colleague knows that 
period of history very well.
  Kennedy said the following:

       This Nation is prepared to present its case against the 
     Soviet threat to peace and our own proposals for a peaceful 
     world at any time and in any forum in the Organization of 
     American States, in the United Nations, or in any other 
     meeting that could be useful, without limiting our freedom of 
     action.

  That, to me, answers the question.
  Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, the citation by the Senator from Virginia 
is a very impressive one, beyond any question, that some might think 
there was some difference in circumstances between the imminence of a 
possible attack in 1962, with the so-called Cuban missile crisis, 
compared to the present time with respect to Iraq. I would be 
interested to know what the Senator from Virginia was doing at that 
time. I can tell the Senator from Virginia that was the one occasion 
where my wife and I went out to the supermarkets and stocked up on 
food, as did most Americans, and put them in the basement of our house.
  The television was replete with maps showing the missile range from 
Cuba to Philadelphia--the ones I particularly noted. They passed by 
Virginia en route to Philadelphia.
  I quite agree with the Senator from Virginia, we ought never 
subordinate our sovereignty when we face that kind of a threat.
  But I think the threat is significantly different with respect to 
Iraq--although I concede the threat. But the point is missed, at least 
somewhat, and that is whether U.S. unilateral action could set a 
precedent for some other country taking unilateral action, such as the 
ones to which I referred.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, any action by a strong, sovereign Nation 
such as ours, which I say with humility is a leader in the world in so 
many issues of foreign policy, can be used as a precedent. But I say to 
my friend, what is the precedent of inaction? I have given some 
comments about the League of Nations here earlier today. Throughout the 
history of the League, it is documented inaction, from Mussolini's 
attack on Abyssinia in the 1930s, to other operations militarily, naked 
aggression--inaction.
  So what is the precedent of inaction, if our President and our Nation 
does nothing collectively with Great Britain, in the face of this 
crisis? So, of course, it would be a precedent.
  But the times have changed. I also put a list in the Record the other 
day of some 13 instances where Presidents of our United States, going 
back as far as 1901, have instituted--you might characterize it, as I 
do, as preemptive; I certainly so characterize it--preemptive strikes 
in the use of the military, the U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines. 
Look here; it is documented: Panama, 1901; Dominican Republic, 1904, 
1914 and 1965; Honduras, 1912; Nicaragua, 1926; Lebanon, 1958; Cuba, 
the naval quarantine in 1962; Grenada, 1983; Libya, 1986; Panama--just 
cause--1989; Somalia, 1992; Sudan and Afghanistan, August 1998; Iraq, 
Desert Fox--you recall that one. The eve of Christmas.
  I remember my good friend and your good friend, Bill Cohen, was 
Secretary of Defense. I went over and visited with him in his office as 
ranking member of the Armed Services Committee, where we discussed the 
coming Desert Fox operation, a form of consultation between the 
executive and legislative branch. That was December of 1998.
  Kosovo, there was preemption. I will hand this to the Senator. That 
was March of 1999.
  International law recognizes the concept of anticipatory self-
defense. That is a phrase known in international law--if a country is 
imminently threatened.

[[Page 19231]]

  I think the record at this point is replete with facts, where we 
could be in imminent threat of the use of weapons of mass destruction 
by Saddam Hussein, and more likely his surrogates--any one of which in 
this international coalition of terrorists.
  Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, without going through the entire litany, 
I agree that those are all illustrations of anticipatory self-defense. 
The Afghanistan missile attack on August 20 of 1998 was in response to 
al-Qaida because of the destruction of our embassies in Africa at about 
that time. I don't think you could call the Grenada incident a matter 
of anticipatory self-defense. I don't think you can call it self-
defense at all. I think what the Senator from Virginia referred to is 
not a case of anticipatory self-defense--action by the United States, 
but not anticipatory self-defense. The quarantine of Cuba, as I said 
before, certainly does qualify, but under very different circumstances.
  But I thank my colleague from Virginia. During the course of the 
coming days, I think we are going to have very extended discussions on 
these issues as we debate this resolution.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I say to my good friend we have been 
fortunate to serve in this institution for many years together, and I 
hope, with luck perhaps, a few more. But the Senator has always been 
very careful, very thoughtful, and well prepared. While I haven't 
always agreed with the Senator, it is not for lack of a strong case 
that he has worked up on his side. I hope in due course he can see the 
wisdom of joining in this resolution which I and three others--Senators 
McCain, Lieberman, and Bayh--have put together. We really believe--and 
it is the one which is before the House of Representatives right now--
that this is the wisest course of action for this Congress to take to 
support the President, and do it in a way that leaves no doubt in 
anyone's mind--Saddam Hussein or any other nations in the United 
Nations--who are thinking that a different course should be taken.
  Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Virginia for 
those comments. We form a long-time mutual admiration society. The 
Senator from Virginia was elected in 1978, and I was elected 2 years 
later. So he has been here finishing up his 24th year, and I, 22. We 
have worked together on many matters.
  I am raising questions only because I think it is in the tradition of 
what they call the world's greatest deliberative body. I am not sure 
that is accurate. But when we face an issue of this sort, we ought to 
be considering it very carefully. That is what I intended to do with 
this very brief colloquy today along that line.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I thank my colleague for his kind remarks. 
We have had a very healthy debate here for 4\1/2\ hours on Friday 
afternoon--Senator Byrd, Senator Kennedy, Senator Dodd, and myself. We 
resumed today with, I think, seven colloquies on both sides of the 
aisle addressing this issue. I think we are going to perhaps even 
exceed the thoroughness, the thoughtfulness, and the strength in the 
debate we had in 1991 on a similar resolution that I dealt with at that 
time, along with my distinguished friend and colleague, Senator 
Lieberman.
  I thank the Senator.
  Mr. Specter. Mr. President, it is true that in 1991 we had a debate 
which was characterized as historic. I recall the occasions when I was 
in the Chamber with the Senator from Virginia seated over there on the 
right-hand side. Senator Nunn was in the Chamber. We were debating that 
extensively in the Chamber today. I think it will be reassuring to the 
American people to see this kind of analysis and this kind of 
discussion--that we are not rushing to judgement.
  Mr. WARNER. They deserve no less. I thank the Senator.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania.
  Mr. SPECTER. I thank the Chair.
  (The remarks of Mr. Specter pertaining to the introduction of S. 3068 
are located in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills 
and Joint Resolutions.'')

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