[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 13]
[House]
[Page 17329]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




               FALSE AND MISLEADING STATEMENTS ABOUT IRAQ

  (Mr. KUCINICH asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Speaker, much media attention has been directed 
toward the President's State of the Union Address on January 28, 2003, 
wherein he alleged an Iraqi nuclear threat which the Vice President's 
office knew was false almost a year earlier. More attention needs to be 
paid to false and misleading statements which preceded the vote on the 
Iraqi resolution in this House.
  Two days before the vote on October 8, 2002, speaking in Cincinnati, 
the President spoke of his determination to attack Iraq: ``Facing clear 
evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof, the smoking gun, 
that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud.''
  This chilling apocalyptic statement was not based on clear evidence 
of peril but was, in fact, based on falsehoods hidden from public view 
by the office of the Vice President. Did the Vice President's office 
knowingly conceal information its own representative obtained that Iraq 
was, in fact, not attempting to purchase nuclear materials from Niger? 
Was the White House in possession of the same information prior to the 
President giving his shocking declaration in Cincinnati?
  There is no question that the President's statements, which we now 
know were false and misleading, influenced the debate in this House and 
the decision to go to war. It is imperative we have open public 
hearings to wash this stain from our national reputation.

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