[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 13]
[House]
[Pages 18173-18174]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                MANY REASONS TO QUESTION ACTIONS IN IRAQ

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Washington (Mr. McDermott) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, last night I could not sleep. Maybe it 
was the heat, or maybe I was just trying to make some sense of the 
situation we are in before Mr. Blair arrives in Washington, D.C.
  Mr. Blair is in a lot of trouble at home, and Mr. Bush is in a little 
bit of trouble here.
  There are many, many reasons to question our actions in Iraq, but, 
for some reason, there is a huge focus right now on the Niger uranium 
claim. So far, nothing the administration said about Saddam's gallons 
of nerve gas or smallpox or Anthrax or missiles or any other dangers we 
were supposed to be facing from Iraq have been found to be true. But 
until the last rock in Iraq has been turned over, the administration 
can say it is continuing to try hard to confirm the justifications for 
war it offered just a few months ago.
  The uranium claim is different. I think that we are focusing on this 
claim because it was clear and concrete and seemingly supported by 
evidence and details. The President told us, ``The British government 
has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities 
of uranium from Africa.''
  In retrospect, the administration figures have claimed that the 
President did not claim that Hussein was trying to buy uranium but only 
noted the British claim. Leaving aside how truly pathetic that kind of 
desperate parsing is, the statement was still false. The British 
government has learned no such thing. The ``information'' the British 
relied on came from one source, or perhaps two.
  First, there were some crudely forged papers. ABC News has reported 
that the papers were created by an underpaid African diplomat who was 
stationed in Rome and sold to the Italian Secret Service which, in good 
NATO-ally fashion, passed the information on. We may know more about 
that soon, because the Italian judicial system opened an investigation 
into the matter earlier today.
  The other source is perhaps the French. In early April The Washington 
Post noted that Western intelligence officials were fingering France as 
the country that circulated the fake papers.
  Let us step back a moment from this who-did-what-to-whom and look at 
the actual claim. Was there anything believable about it? If the 
documents had been really top-notch forgeries instead of laughable 
fakes, would the claim that Saddam Hussein was making a secret effort 
to acquire hundreds of tons of uranium oxide from Niger have been 
something to stake a life-and-death decision on?
  Niger is a small country in West Africa, about the size of Rio de 
Janeiro in population. They have been mining uranium since 1970. There 
are two mines that produce uranium.

                              {time}  2045

  Both mines are run by an international consortium that includes 
Japanese, German, Spanish and French interests. Both mines are closely 
monitored by the International Atomic Energy Agency. There is nothing, 
nothing that could lead an objective observer to believe that Iraqi 
agents would slip into Niger, make a deal, and slip out again without 
somebody in the tiny expatriate community noticing and mentioning to 
Dr. El Baradei, the director general of the International Atomic Energy 
Agency.

[[Page 18174]]

  In fact, a distinguished retired American diplomat, Joe Wilson, spent 
more than a week in Niger sniffing around for any hint that the story 
might be true and found absolutely nothing.
  It is simply not believable that this tiny, highly regulated industry 
in this tiny, sparsely populated country could have or would have 
violated IAE rules and broken U.N. sanctions to sell uranium oxide to 
Hussein. There are plenty of legitimate customers.
  So why did the administration decide to believe it? Because of the 
overwhelming evidence? Hardly.
  Last week Secretary of State Powell gave the following ringing 
defense to the President's claim: ``There was sufficient evidence 
floating around at the time that such a statement was not totally 
outrageous.''
  Well, there you have it. It was obvious to anyone who looked into it 
carefully that Niger had neither the means nor the motive to sell 
uranium to Iraq. It was obvious. It was reported. And it was known. And 
yet the Secretary of State said, people of his stature thought it was 
not totally outrageous.
  Mr. Speaker, actually it was totally outrageous. The President and 
the Congress are sworn to protect the United States of America. This is 
our most solemn duty. The question, and it is the only question that 
matters, is this: Did the threat posed by Saddam Hussein rise to the 
level of an imminent threat to national security or even to a grave and 
gathering danger? So far nothing leads to that conclusion.
  There can be little argument about whether the people of Iraq are 
better off today than they were under Hussein. They are. But the 200 
young Americans who have died and continue to die, one died last night, 
did not pledge their lives to make the people of Iraq better off. They 
pledged to protect the United States of America from real threats to 
our security. They died believing that they did. So far, I do not know 
why they died. We should find out.

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