[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 2]
[Senate]
[Pages 1804-1807]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                                  IRAQ

  Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, as President Bush prepares to address the 
Nation on the state of the Union, we stand, to state the obvious, at a 
precipice of a momentous decision: War, war with Iraq.
  The American people, and the world, for that matter, are waiting to 
hear what the President's decision is and his rationale for it. They 
are waiting to

[[Page 1805]]

hear a clear explanation of why war may be the only remaining 
alternative and what will be expected of them not only in winning the 
war but what will be expected of the American people for us to win the 
peace.
  A generation ago, I and my entire generation learned a very important 
lesson. That lesson was: No matter how brilliant or how well thought 
out a foreign policy may be, it cannot be sustained without the 
informed consent of the American people.
  To date, there has been no informed consent. That is not a criticism; 
it is just an objective observation. For the President, to date, has 
not had the requirement, in the hope of avoiding war, to inform the 
American people in detail of what the consequences of war will be and 
what will be expected of them.
  To date, the American people only know that Saddam Hussein is a 
brutal dictator, who has used weapons of mass destruction against his 
own people, and that he is the man who invaded Kuwait, and we expelled 
him. They are not sure as to whether or not he is an imminent threat; 
that is, a threat to those security moms, not soccer moms, who are in 
their living rooms and are worried about the health of their children 
and the safety of their homes.
  The American people are confused, I would respectfully suggest, by 
the President's talk and the administration's talk of a new doctrine of 
preemption, and whether or not this is the basis upon which we are 
arguing we should act, or that we are acting to enforce, essentially, a 
peace agreement, a peace agreement signed by Saddam Hussein at the end 
of the Kuwaiti war that said: In return for me being able to stay in 
power, I commit to do the following things.
  They are under the impression--the American people--because of the 
signals being sent by the Secretary of Defense and his civilian 
subordinates, that this war will be short, essentially bloodless, and, 
just as in 1991, Johnny will come marching home again in several weeks, 
if not several months, after a decisive, bloodless military victory.
  The American people are assuming we will lead a very broad coalition 
of other nations and have the world behind us in our effort. They 
further assume, contrary very much to the hard evidence, that the 
defeat of Saddam Hussein will be a major setback for Osama bin Laden 
and al-Qaida and other terrorist organizations.
  In short, they are under the assumption that one of the reasons we 
are moving against Saddam is that we will literally make terrorists' 
actions much less probable in the United States of America than they 
are today. For why else would we use all this power we have assembled 
in the gulf to go after Iraq rather than using all this power to go 
after Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan and in northwestern Pakistan where 
he most probably is according to our intelligence community?
  They put it together. Obviously, the President would not take 250,000 
forces, invade, if we must, Iraq, if he didn't think that would 
materially affect what I, as an American man, or woman thinks is the 
greatest threat to me, another 9/11. They also assume, contrary to any 
hard evidence, that Saddam Hussein is months away from developing a 
nuclear weapon that could strike American soil, for which he has no 
capacity, nor in any reasonable prospect in the future would he have 
any capacity to send a nuclear weapon airborne from Iraq to the United 
States.
  Lastly, they seem to think the financial cost of this war will be 
manageable and not cause any further economic disruption, for why else 
for the first time in American history is the President of the United 
States calling for war, the possibility of war involving 250,000 
American troops, at the very same time he is going to call, tonight, 
for a $650 billion tax cut? That has never been done in the history of 
the United States of America. Obviously, they think the President 
wouldn't do that unless this was going to be pretty costless, this war.
  In short, I don't think the American people have been told honestly 
what will be expected of them and what additionally may be asked of 
them if things don't go so well. I think they will go well. I am one 
who has not been happy in the way we have proceeded, who thinks this 
war will be prosecuted in a way that will absolutely, to use the 
expression younger people use, blow the mind of the world in terms of 
our military prowess. But it may not.
  Why is it so critical to inform the American people? Why, beyond 
their democratic right to know, is it so vital? I will answer that by 
telling you a story.
  On December 8, 2002, I was in Qatar being briefed by General Franks, 
witnessing the preparation for war, and the war games were being 
carried on. There were assembled in this secure room--a gigantic hangar 
with a movie screen literally larger than the size of the wall behind 
the Presiding Officer, probably somewhere around 30 feet high and 40 
feet wide--200 generals. I have never seen so many stars in my life, 
other than when I was a little kid lying on my back looking up on a 
crystal clear night in the middle of the summer.
  I was asked, after being briefed by these warriors, whether or not I 
would address the assembled crowd, all active military personnel 
planning this war. These men and women to a person were ready to go and 
were secure in their knowledge that they would successfully complete 
their mission if asked to by defeating Saddam Hussein, if ordered to do 
so. What they were unsure of was us, the politicians, and whether we 
were willing to tell the American people exactly what was likely to be 
asked of them and were the American people willing to continue to give 
them the support they were going to need over a long haul, not the 
short haul? And it will be a long haul, regardless of how quickly and 
successfully we wage this war.
  For those fighting men and women in this room know it is going to be 
necessary to stay in Iraq for a long time, to have tens of thousands--I 
predict over 75,000 American forces remaining in Iraq a minimum of a 
year and a half and, I predict, 5 years after we secure victory. And 
they wanted to know whether or not the American people knew that, for 
they don't want to be over there a year from now when the debate comes 
up and it is between another $20 billion to stay in Iraq and $20 
billion for education or for a tax cut. We have no right to put them in 
that squeeze again, as happened a generation ago.
  They also wanted to know if Saddam, as some suggest--and I am 
revealing nothing; I am not speaking from classified reports--and his 
120 to 150,000 Republican Guard, the only ones we are really worried 
about, their capacity, if they retreat to Baghdad, a city, a city of 5 
million people, are the American people prepared to continue to support 
our military when they see the inevitable happen? Innocent women and 
children being killed. We know what will happen. We know if they 
retreat to Baghdad they will retreat to hospitals, apartment complexes, 
and our fighting women and men, if this happens--and it is not sure it 
will--would have to go door to door. They were worried that the 
response would be the same response that occurs seeing Israelis 
knocking down a building or seeing a child killed in the crossfire.
  They are worried they will become the bad guys, particularly, as I 
said, if the Republican Guard falls back to a city of 5 million people. 
Imagine going house to house in Philadelphia or Houston, routing out 2, 
5, 10, 20, 50, 70,000 fighters. I told them that I believed this 
generation and the American people would pay whatever price and pledge 
its support to them, but only if they had informed consent. But that 
has not been done yet, and it must be done.
  For while it is reasonable to expect the best, it would be 
irresponsible not to prepare for the worst. Iraq could lash out against 
Israel, Saudi Arabia and/or Kuwait in an effort to start a wider war. 
It could use weapons of mass destruction against our troops or its 
neighbors. It could destroy its oil fields and those of its neighbors. 
It could start giving away its weapons of mass destruction to 
terrorists.
  It could create a humanitarian nightmare among the Kurds in the north 
and

[[Page 1806]]

the Shia in the south, denying them food or medicine, even using 
chemical weapons against them, as Saddam has done in the past, and as I 
saw for myself when I met the survivors a month ago in northern Iraq.
  Maybe none of these unintended consequences will occur, but there is 
a decent chance that one or more will. We must put every chance on our 
side and prepare the American people for what is bad as well as what is 
good. Hopefully that will be done tonight or sometime soon by the 
President, but not after the fact. The world, our allies, also are 
waiting for a clearer explanation of why war.
  I just returned from the World Economic Forum and found myself 
confronted with the most uniform and significant anti-American 
sentiment I have ever encountered in my career of 30 years dealing with 
foreign leaders abroad. Not a single American diplomat, elected 
official, American journalist, businessman or labor leader would 
disagree with the assessment I just gave you.
  It raises several questions that need to be answered. Why do they 
feel this way? Why should it matter? And if it does matter, what should 
we do about it? Why? There are multiple reasons, and my pointing them 
out to a predominantly non-American audience of hundreds if not 
thousands of world leaders was not always appreciated the last 4 days, 
let alone agreed with. Let me give you some of the reasons why they 
feel the way they do, not all of which are legitimate, by any means.
  There is a lack of strong leadership in the respective countries that 
has been unwilling to tell their people the truth about Saddam Hussein 
and the commitment their country and the world made to deal with him 
when he sued for peace over 10 years ago. There are selfish economic 
motives on the part of some of our allies with regard to their favored 
position with regard to oil or telecom and scores of other areas.
  Another reason is the resentment of America's predominant position as 
the world's most powerful military and economic nation as well as our 
cultural dominance, from Coca-Cola to rap music to English on the 
Internet, all of which they resent in the same way we would all resent 
if tomorrow our States predominantly said, we are going to switch to a 
different language because a predominant number of people in our State 
speak that language. This is compounded by the belief that the 
President is being pushed by the right wing of his administration to 
further leverage this predominant position into an even more dominant 
position relative to the rest of the world. It is also compounded by an 
inability to contribute much in the way of a fight, either by 
augmenting our military strength or their own, as well as a seething 
resentment at our unwillingness to use the forces they offered us in 
Afghanistan after declaring that an article 5 breach had occurred under 
our NATO treaty.
  With regard to Iraq specifically, many don't see Saddam as a credible 
threat to them. Their people don't believe our assertions. They say he 
no longer has the weapons of mass destruction that we know he has. They 
believe in the aftermath of victory, we will not stay until there is a 
stable Government in Iraq--as we have not stayed in Afghanistan 
sufficiently--and they believe the resulting power struggle within 
Iraq, in their region, will have disastrous consequences for their 
Governments because they have all heard this administration say it will 
not be engaged in nation building. And they all know, and everyone 
knows, we are going to have to be engaged in nation building after we 
win the war.
  All of this is compounded by the obvious discussion within the 
administration: The announcement of a new doctrine of preemption that 
has yet to be explained to us, let alone them; the appearance of a 
great power being petulant when a President stands before the world and 
says ``I am growing impatient, I am getting tired''; the apparent 
contradiction in the rest of the world's mind of the treatment of the 
threat from North Korea, which has weapons of mass destruction, 
including nuclear, has a record of proliferation, and has violated 
international agreements, and we are talking to them; whereas, Iraq, 
which has no nuclear weapons--we cannot find the weapons of mass 
destruction, and there is scant evidence of similar proliferation--they 
say we speak with two different voices--the feeling that the 
administration has acted, without serious consultation, unilaterally in 
unceremoniously withdrawing from further negotiations, from 
international structures, such as climate control, criminal courts, 
ABM, and others.
  Isn't the only thing that matters whether we make it work in the long 
run, which is what they hear from some in this administration? Won't it 
all disappear when we succeed, as we hear some in this administration 
say, because everybody loves a winner, right? Wrong. It matters what 
other nations think because our most basic immediate interests cannot 
be fully secured without a longer term cooperation with these other 
nations because we must convince them and not coerce them.
  Let me give a few examples of what our most immediate vital interests 
are. Crushing international terror: How can you do that without 
cooperation from the intelligence services from Jakarta to Berlin, from 
Paris to Beijing, from Moscow to Rio? Preventing North Korea from 
escalating its nuclear programs and proliferation of weapons of mass 
destruction, and doing so without a war: How can we succeed without the 
cooperation of Russia, China, Japan, and South Korea, other than 
through war? All of this leads to the perception that some within the 
administration argue that it is better to go it alone. They have a 
belief that is the President's position. I don't believe it is his 
position, but what do they hear? They hear the theories proffered by 
some in the civilian Defense Department saying, if we move in the face 
of world public opinion, the rest of the world knows we will mean 
business and the more we do it alone, the more we will impress upon the 
rogue nations that they better change or they are next. They also hear 
us saying that Europe is tired, indecisive, and ultimately unwilling to 
do what is necessary to keep the peace and commands too much of our 
resources and attention, particularly, as the Secretary of Defense 
said, ``old Europe,'' France, and Germany. They keenly resent these 
characterizations.
  I think this is an inaccurate description of where President Bush is, 
but I do believe, though, that his choice of words and failure to 
clearly explain his choices and basis for action when we do act has 
been dangerous to our standing in the world, which leads me to a second 
question.
  Why should it matter what our standing is--what the rest of the world 
thinks of us? I believe it matters a lot. Preventing a nuclear war on 
the subcontinent between India and Pakistan matters. But as we 
announced a unilateral pronouncement of a ``new'' doctrine of 
preemption--whatever that means is yet to be explained--that leads to 
the conclusion in India and Pakistan that if we can act preemptively, 
why can they not act preemptively against one another? Conveying our 
values to the rest of the world so as to diminish the misunderstanding 
of our motives runs constantly into some of the assertions that come 
from some in this administration.
  Let me get right to it, Mr. President. It matters what other nations 
think, and it matters that although we can force other nations to do 
things, it matters how we do it. Here is an example. There is a new 
Government in Turkey--newly elected represented by an Islamic Party. 
That Islamic Party recently won the election, and the Prime Minister is 
a guy named Gul. The real operator is a guy named Erdogan. They were 
leading this Islamic Party and they have decided they want to have 
Turkey remain a secular state and they want to be integrated into 
Europe with regard to the EU. It is very much in the interest of the 
United States of America--very much--that that happens. We do not want 
an Islamic state; we want a secular state looking west.

[[Page 1807]]

  So what is the problem? We can offer $5 billion and essentially buy 
the support to allow us to launch from Turkey. But if we do that in the 
absence of a worldwide consensus that what we are doing is right, we 
may meet our immediate goal and lose a heck of a lot. Here is an 
example. Right now, in Turkey--which I recently visited and I know the 
Presiding Officer knows this--over 85 percent of the Turkish people are 
unalterably opposed to a war with Iraq and unalterably opposed to 
Turkey cooperating with us in being able to successfully prosecute that 
war. So what happens if we go to war and we launch from Turkey with the 
support of the new Islamic leadership without having changed the minds 
of the people in Turkey and/or the world, to suggest that this is not 
merely us, but that it is sanctioned by the world that we do this? 
Well, the roughly 35 to 40 percent of this Islamic Party that is 
radical Islamic will play to its populist instincts and cause 
incredible trouble for the existing administration in Turkey and, I 
believe, force them to move away from their commitment to a secular 
state.
  So that old biblical proverb, what does it profit a man if he gains 
the world and loses his soul--paraphrasing it--what does it profit us 
to move prematurely on Iraq from Turkey if the end result is that we 
radicalize a government that is represented by the Islamic Party.
  What have we gained?
  I will answer the third question, and then conclude. So what should 
we do? I have argued that out of our self-interest it matters what 
other nations think. So what should we be doing? I begin by saying, 
given where we are now, coupled with Saddam Hussein being in material 
breach--that is a fancy phrase for saying not explaining what he has 
done with the weapons of mass destruction we know he has--those two 
things may force us to choose between the better of two not-so-pleasant 
options.
  The option I would choose in this circumstance, if we do not get 
world support, is that Saddam is in material breach of the latest U.N. 
resolution. Yesterday's damning report by the U.N. inspectors makes 
clear again Saddam's contempt for the world and it has vindicated the 
President's decision last fall to go to the U.N.
  The legitimacy of the Security Council is at stake, as well as the 
integrity of the U.N. So if Saddam does not give up those weapons of 
mass destruction and the Security Council does not call for the use of 
force, I think we have little option but to act with a larger group of 
willing nations, if possible, and alone if we must. Make no mistake 
about it, we will pay a price if that is the way we go. We will have no 
option, but we will pay a price, a price that could be significantly 
reduced if from this moment on we act, in my humble opinion, more 
wisely.
  What should we be doing from this point on? I will be very brief now 
and expand on this later. One, we should lower the rhetoric. We should 
not appear to be the petulant nation, wondering why the rest of the 
recalcitrant world will not act with us, showing our impatience. It 
does not suit a great nation well. It would not suit my father well, 
were he alive. It does not suit someone of stature well--and we are a 
nation of stature.
  Two, we should make the case not only privately to our partners by 
sharing more proof of Saddam's crimes and possessions, but also to our 
people and in turn to the whole world. Legally, he is in breach, but 
going to war based on that legal breach will cost us in ways we would 
not have to pay if we go to war with the rest of the world 
understanding that there is something there beyond the failure to 
account.
  The third thing we should do is give inspectors more time, for their 
very presence in Iraq diminishes the possibility of sharing weapons of 
mass destruction with terrorists or continuing their quest for nuclear 
weapons. Inspectors are not a permanent solution. We know from our 
experience of the last decade that Iraq will try to make their mission 
impossible. We also know that sustaining a massive deployment of troops 
is expensive and hard on our men and women in uniform. But right now 
the inspectors are helping us build support for our policy, both at 
home and abroad, and we should let them keep working in the near term.
  The fourth thing we should do is articulate clearly and repeatedly 
not only the legal basis for our action, if we must move, but our 
commitment to stay until we have a stable Iraq, and that means the 
following: The President should state clearly tonight, we are not 
acting on a doctrine of preemption, if we act. We are acting on 
enforcement of a U.N. resolution that is the equivalent of a peace 
treaty which is being violated by the signatory of that treaty, and we 
have a right to do that and it is the world's problem. It is not what 
we hear out of the civilian Defense Department, this cockamamie notion 
of a new doctrine of preemption which no one understands.
  Two, our objective has to be clearly stated as eliminating weapons of 
mass destruction and not the destruction of Iraq, for that is the 
President's purpose.
  Thirdly, we will in fact participate in nation building; we will seek 
U.N. support and we will tell the American people what we are asking of 
them and why, for they have no idea now what is expected of them. They 
do not know what the costs will be to remove Saddam and they should. 
They do not know how many troops will have to stay in Iraq to secure 
the country, and we have estimates, and what it will take to get a 
representative government that lives up to its international 
obligations.
  Can we count on our friends and allies to share the burden? Can we 
afford to attack Iraq, fully fund homeland security, cut taxes for the 
wealthiest Americans, and finish the unfinished war on terrorism in 
Afghanistan and other places?
  These questions should never be excuses for inaction, but they must 
be answered if we want the American people's support and we want to 
avoid the mistakes of the past.
  I yield the floor.

                          ____________________