[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 14]
[Senate]
[Pages 18906-18907]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                       THE JUSTIFICATION FOR WAR

  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I rise to say a few words about the war in 
Iraq.
  My recent visit to the Middle East confirmed that the largest 
obstacle to a free and prosperous Iraq is the significant number of 
people who still live in fear of Saddam Hussein and his sons. That is 
an understandable fear, considering the years of torture so many 
endured under the iron fist of the Hussein regime.
  With today's news from Central Command of the deaths of Uday and 
Qusay Hussein, we are two steps closer to removing that fear, two steps 
closer to rebuilding a once-great nation, and two steps closer to 
ensuring lasting security and freedom for the Iraqi people. I thank all 
the dedicated men and women in our Armed Forces who helped make these 
two steps possible.
  Throughout the past few weeks, we have heard some on this floor raise 
questions about the justification for the war in Iraq.
  Last week on this floor, the senior Senator from North Dakota had 
this to say, and I quote:

       This administration told the world Iraq had weapons of mass 
     destruction, that they are trying to develop nuclear 
     capability, there is a connection to al-Qaida, and each and 
     every one of those claims is now in question, every one of 
     them. It is not just 16 words in the State of the Union. It 
     is far more serious than that.

  I find this charge to be simply indefensible. It is an accusation 
that flies in the face of everything that we have seen about Saddam 
Hussein's regime. It offends the reasoning mind. It maligns all good 
Members of this body

[[Page 18907]]

who weighed the intelligence about Iraq in the balance and decided that 
this war was just and right--and voted for it. I might add, months 
before the President's State of the Union speech.
  We have heard similar statements echoed from others on this floor and 
in the press in recent weeks. I have the utmost respect for my fellow 
Senators. Yet I must confess I am dumbfounded at how soon they forget 
the truth about the vile regime of Saddam Hussein.
  I believe their line of reasoning goes something like this: They 
charge that the President was looking for excuses to go to war with 
Iraq, and that his claims concerning weapons-of-mass-destruction were 
just a pretense for this war.
  I find this line of reasoning nonsensical at best--and downright 
offensive at worst.
  First, if one buys the idea that Saddam Hussein did not possess the 
weapons or the capabilities the administration assigned to him, the 
dictator did not fool us alone as to his guilt. Every significant 
intelligence service in the world, including the vast majority of those 
in nations who opposed this war, were convinced that Iraq possessed 
these weapons. That is why the U.N. Security Council unanimously passed 
Resolution 1441, which declared Iraq in material breach of its 
obligations under numerous previous resolutions, including failing to 
account for weapons of mass destruction that Iraq had previously 
admitted to building and stockpiling.
  As Richard Butler, the former head of the U.N. arms inspection team 
in Iraq, wrote in 2001:

       It would be foolish in the extreme not to assume that 
     [Saddam] is developing long-range missile capabilities; at 
     work again on building nuclear weapons; and adding to the 
     chemical and biological warfare weapons he concealed during 
     the UNSCOM inspection period.

  Yet it is that same logical position that some in this body are 
arguing against today. Those who make accusations based on their 
political desires, not the facts, lump the international political 
community, the media, the intelligence community, and the President of 
the United States into some fantastic form of shadowy conspiracy. This 
is hardly responsible, and I believe it does a great disservice to the 
American people.
  Second, if one honestly argues that because of one offending sentence 
every other claim made by the administration concerning Iraq is now 
under question, you run into a very hard brick wall of solid fact. 
Perhaps my colleagues will explain what form of gas Saddam used to kill 
more than 100,000 Kurds, including 5,000 in just one day. Perhaps they 
will explain why, prior to kicking out the U.N. inspection team in 
1998, Iraqi officials admitted that they had produced biological 
weapons agents--including 4 tons of VX, 8,500 liters of anthrax and 
19,000 liters of botulinum toxin--and biological weapons delivery 
munitions, including aerial bombs, aerial dispensers, and Scud missile 
warheads. Perhaps they will explain why, for more than a decade, Saddam 
Hussein stymied inspectors, buried research facilities, built mobile 
biological weapons labs, intimidated scientists, and even removed the 
tongues of those who questioned his regime.
  I would ask my colleagues who have made these arguments to answer a 
question for me, then. Under their line of reasoning, why did our 
President seek the authority to pursue this war? If, as they claim, 
there was no overarching consensus that Saddam Hussein represented a 
danger to American security and peace in the Middle East and around the 
world, why did the President undertake this war? Why did so many vote 
to support the President, here in the Senate and in the United Nations?
  War is a serious enterprise, one that is not undertaken without risk. 
The fact that Baghdad fell in 3 weeks, with so few casualties among 
coalition forces, fulfilled our greatest hopes for this conflict. I 
know I am thankful for that fact, and I know the President is as well. 
I also know that the case for this war remains solid.
  This was a case built not on one piece of evidence provided by 
British intelligence, but on a much deeper long-term purpose. It was 
built on the noble goal of ending the decades of brutal and violent 
works by Saddam Hussein, and on our clear duty to ensure America's 
security in the post-9/11 world by removing state-sponsors of terrorism 
and opposing regimes that threaten other nations with weapons of mass 
destruction.
  Three-hundred thousand people, maybe more, are buried in mass graves 
spread throughout Iraq, in nearly a hundred reported sites. They 
stretch from Basrah to Baghdad, from Najaf to Kirkuk. They are silent 
monuments to Saddam's legacy of ruthlessness and evil.
  The suggestion in the face of these silent witnesses that Iraq, the 
Middle East, and America are not better off today than we were before 
this war is simply ludicrous.
  We have finished the fighting. Now we must finish the job. We seek to 
make Iraq secure, to make it a place where the rule of law can be 
established, so that civilian leaders and the Iraqi Governing Council 
can establish a new government for a new nation.
  This is not an easy task--and it is not without cost. But it must be 
done, so that Iraq can flourish as a free nation, and so that the 
victories won, the lives risked and lost, will not be in vain.
  Those we spend their time playing political games with our mission in 
Iraq, even while our brave men and women labor to secure and stabilize 
this fledging nation, dishonor our soldiers in the field and the 
memories of all of those who sacrificed their lives opposing the 
bloodthirsty regime of Saddam Hussein.
  President Clinton argued in 1998 that if America did not act, Saddam 
Hussein would:

       . . . go right on and do more to rebuild an arsenal of 
     devastating destruction. And some day, some way, I guarantee 
     you, he's use the arsenal.

  President Bush agreed with that argument, and he decided to do 
something about it. Many of us agreed with that argument, and we voted 
to support the President. And I am confident history will record it as 
the right decision--a decision based strongly on the principles of 
human freedom that inspired America's foundation.
  Last week, Prime Minister Blair reminded us that we have a duty as a 
powerful nation to take great care regarding what kind of world we 
leave for our children. I believe that the task that falls to us at 
this moment in history is spreading the blessings of liberty, bringing 
the light of freedom to a nation imprisoned in the darkness.
  Let those who are more comfortable playing political games--play on. 
Those of us who wish to accomplish something greater will labor on, 
undeterred, always confident in our ultimate goal: We seek a just, 
free, and peaceful world--for ourselves, for the Iraqi people, and for 
future generations.

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