[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 5]
[House]
[Pages 6491-6497]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




 CONGRESSIONAL BLACK CAUCUS' PRINCIPLES ON U.S. MILITARY ACTION IN IRAQ

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 7, 2003, the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cummings) is 
recognized for 60 minutes.
  Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Speaker, I would like to insert into the Record the 
Congressional Black Caucus' principles on United States military action 
in Iraq. They are as follows:
  We oppose the unilateral first strike action by the United States 
without a clearly demonstrated and imminent threat of attack on the 
United States.
  Only Congress has the authority to declare war.
  Every diplomatic option must be exhausted.
  A unilateral first strike would undermine the moral authority of the 
United States, result in substantial loss of life, destabilize the 
Mideast region and undermine the abilities of our Nation to address 
unmet domestic priorities.

                              {time}  2130

  Further, any post-strike plan for maintaining stability in the region 
would be costly and would require a long-term commitment.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise at a moment when America stands at the brink of 
war. Our actions in Iraq will define our moral standing in the world 
for this generation and for generations yet unborn. I have given my 
oath to do everything within my power to support our men and women in 
uniform. We have a great American tradition that when we engage in 
combat, we support our troops. I will fulfill that solemn obligation. 
However, I also have pledged my commitment to ensure their sacrifice is 
warranted and just. That obligation does not allow me to remain silent 
tonight.
  Mr. Speaker, the President has declared that he will allow no more 
time for a negotiated disarmament of Iraq. We all know the terrible 
consequences of that decision. The stakes are enormous. Many human 
beings will be harmed and others will die. In the course, American 
foreign policy could be seriously changed. So before a single shot has 
been fired, I must again raise what I consider to be the fundamental 
question about this preemptive war: By what authority, by what right 
does this Nation justify the taking of life in Iraq?

[[Page 6492]]

  Mr. Speaker, the American people have created the strongest military 
force in history. We in this Congress will continue to support our 
troops. We will continue to ensure that they are the best trained and 
equipped in the world. Yet as a people, Americans have never subscribed 
to the proposition that our might makes us right. America has never led 
by military power alone, but by our devotion to principles and the 
legitimacy of our mission. And now that principled foundation of our 
national security has been placed in jeopardy and the legitimacy of our 
mission, and therefore the credibility of our Nation, is challenged by 
a significant part of the global community and our own citizens.
  The administration regrettably has failed to achieve the U.N. 
approval and broad-based international support that are critical to 
achieving our objectives and protecting our men and women in uniform in 
the Middle East. We have an obligation to ask why the administration 
has failed to make its case.
  If the President's rationale for war were self-evident, a broad-based 
multinational ``coalition of the willing'' would have indeed 
materialized. At the heart of the administration's failure, I am 
convinced, is the absence of clear and convincing evidence that Iraq 
poses an imminent threat either to the United States or other nations 
of the world.
  Moreover, Mr. Speaker, the administration has yet to adequately 
explain the consequences of going to war to the American people. Have 
we received clear and convincing evidence that the President's decision 
will not destabilize the Middle East, will not make our defense against 
terrorism more difficult, and will not undermine our ability to meet 
the compelling domestic needs of Americans here at home?
  Where is the administration's comprehensive plan for the political 
and economic stability of Iraq once hostilities have ended? Where is 
the President's evaluation of the cost of military conflict and 
reconstruction? Where is the President's analysis of the impact upon 
our economy? Will both affluent Americans and working-class Americans 
share fairly in that sacrifice?
  The answers to these questions raise the classic conflict between 
whether we pursue questionable international missions or spend the 
resources for urgent domestic priorities.
  Mr. Speaker, that is why we have not yet received the 
administration's answers to any of these critical questions. 
Fundamentally, however, the issue of war remains one of morality. 
Following President Bush's ultimatum last night, the Vatican offered 
this response, ``Whoever decides that all peaceful means that 
international law has put at our disposition have been exhausted 
assumes a serious responsibility before God, his conscience and 
history.''
  I submit that the heavy weight of this responsibility is shared by 
the President and every Member of this House; and that realization 
should give us pause, that we have pursued the right course and that we 
are doing the right thing by this military action.
  So tonight, as I speak, tens of thousands of religious congregations 
throughout the world, women and men of every faith and tradition, are 
praying that peace will prevail for the good of our country and the 
enlightened progress of humanity.
  May God protect our men and women in uniform and all the innocents 
who now stand in harm's way, and bring them safely home. And may God 
guide America during these dangerous times.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Meeks).
  Mr. MEEKS of New York. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman of the 
Congressional Black Caucus for his leadership in bringing us to the 
House floor to speak to the American people tonight about the Bush 
administration's decision to choose war as the best way to make the 
American people safe. It is a choice which I believe is wrong.
  First and foremost, in opposing President Bush's decision, let me say 
unequivocally I support in every way the men and women of our armed 
services and the sacrifices they and their families are being asked to 
make. May God bless each and every one of them in this time of crisis 
and bring them home safely.
  Mr. Speaker, I believe in a strong America. We have more instruments 
of power than any nation on Earth. However, our greatest source of 
power is our moral clarity and purpose in how we use our strength. 
Unfortunately, the Bush administration has failed to understand this.
  As our President prepares to unilaterally and preemptively use 
military force against a nation which is not an imminent threat to us, 
we may be on the verge of threatening the very international laws and 
norms which are the foundation of global stability. Many of the 
consequences of such actions have already become known. America is more 
isolated than ever and anti-American sentiment is rising globally. 
However, it is the unknown consequences of this administration's choice 
for war which will likely be even more dangerous. My single greatest 
fear is that this war will jeopardize the help we receive from moderate 
Muslim nations in successfully bringing to justice those who directly 
attacked us on 9-11 and prevent attacks against Americans at home and 
abroad against known imminent terrorist threats.
  Contrary to the President's force dichotomy that our choice was 
either war or doing nothing, I believe we do have alternatives to this 
war. If Iraq was such a threat, we can continue to use robust 
inspections, sanctions, and a military containment box. There are 
others that I think are on the list that are much more of an imminent 
danger to us here in America, but it is clear to the world that this 
war is not really about Iraq's threats to America.
  The world believes that this war is about changing a regime we once 
supported and a test case for the Bush administration's doctrine of 
preemption, a doctrine that was not just created after 9-11, but a 
doctrine that was espoused back in 1991 by many of the same individuals 
in the Bush II administration during the Bush I administration. So it 
is not a new doctrine that we have to go by because of 9-11; it is a 
doctrine that was preached and talked about prior to 9-11 by many 
members of this administration.
  I believe it is a disservice for the strongest Nation in the world to 
adopt such a doctrine, because it represents a policy of fear and 
weakness. More importantly, it signals a dangerous devaluation of 
diplomacy as an instrument of statecraft to the entire world.
  Mr. Speaker, there is not a question in my mind that our military 
will defeat Iraq, but the real question for America and the world is 
what will come next and what damage to the region and international 
order will this cause? What will happen in the Arab and Muslim worlds 
when the U.S. military occupies Iraq in the name of stability? In the 
end, the question is: Will this make America safer? I believe not. I 
think we are making a mistake; but may God bless all of the men and 
women again that are there, that they may return home to their families 
safely.
  Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his statement, 
and I want to make it clear, as the gentleman has made and all of us 
will make, that we strongly support our troops. They are our sons, our 
daughters, our sisters, our brothers, our friends, our fathers, our 
mothers.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Davis).
  Mr. DAVIS of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman of the 
Congressional Black Caucus for yielding, and I also commend the 
gentleman for the outstanding leadership he has provided and continues 
to provide not only on this issue but on a myriad of issues affecting 
this country and affecting our world.
  I rise today to discuss the war that is pending, the unfortunate war 
that we are about seemingly to enter. I make it clear that those men 
and women who stand ready and are poised and who stand on the front 
lines and are ready to give every measure of devotion that they have, 
even in many instances perhaps their lives, are to be commended. They 
are to be supported. They are to be acknowledged for the tremendous 
sacrifice they are prepared to make.

[[Page 6493]]

  I have been told that war is by definition a state of open-armed 
conflict between nations, states or parties. It is a condition of 
active antagonism or contention, a concerted effort to combat something 
injurious. War is also the admission of the failure of diplomacy.

                              {time}  2145

  Since the passing of the USA PATRIOT Act of 2001, H.R. 3162, we have 
provided funding to intercept and to obstruct terrorism, our peace 
initiative. Unfortunately, recent failures in American diplomacy have 
impacted the United Nations' ability to work for a peaceful solution.
  In my home State of Illinois, the citizens of my district, as in all 
of America, have made many sacrifices during these difficult times. The 
greatest sacrifice has been that there are an estimated 100,000 
servicemen and women currently stationed at strategic points overseas 
to ensure the success of this conflict. Many of them are citizens of my 
district and of the hundreds of other districts across this great 
Nation.
  There are compelling reasons that may have motivated our President to 
pursue this course of action. First, we have been told that we have the 
military might, resources readily available and poised at strategic 
points across the globe to address what is hoped to be a short-term 
conflict, and that we have the support of allies, Great Britain and 
Spain.
  The noted Greek historian Herodotus once said, ``In peace, sons bury 
fathers, but war violates the order of nature, and fathers bury sons.'' 
The loss of human life in efforts of war, regardless of their country 
of origin, is unacceptable and should be avoided, as all life is 
sacred.
  While military and human resources may have been committed to this 
effort, the full cost of this war has yet to be disclosed, especially 
when we do not have the full support of the United Nations for both the 
war and the subsequent occupation and rebuilding of Iraq. I see no 
United Nations-supported Marshall Plan on the horizon.
  We were told that while we acknowledge the strained relationship with 
North Korea caused by their blatant confrontational comments and open 
defiance in the propagation of their own nuclear supremacy agenda, they 
are not of primary concern. Yet North Korea and its quest for nuclear 
power is an issue that will haunt us in the future because of our 
inaction today.
  We have also been advised by our President that this war in Iraq is 
the only means that we as a Nation have to respond to Iraq's 10-year 
failure to comply with United Nations Security Council resolutions 
calling for their disarmament after the first Persian Gulf war in 1991. 
The selection of Iraq was not a matter of revenge, unfounded on any 
principle, but was within the law as ascribed by United Nations 
Resolution 1441 and will also aid our efforts in the war on terrorism 
by accomplishing the removal of Saddam Hussein and his lieutenants. 
This, we have been told, will also ensure the disbanding, if not 
destruction, of the terrorist cells that are either located in or are 
supported by Saddam Hussein and his regime.
  Mohandas Gandhi, a man praised and revered for his life of peace, 
said, ``I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the 
good is only temporary. The evil it does is permanent.''
  Mr. Speaker, I am not convinced by any shape, form or fashion that 
invading Iraq, that a preemptive strike by this country is going to net 
the results that we are hoping for. But I am optimistic, and I still 
hope. I hope and I pray that somehow or another before there is a grand 
holocaust, that peace will be found and peace will prevail. But if not, 
certainly I stand with the men and women, the young persons from my 
congressional district who are poised and have left home, who are ready 
to give of themselves and to give of their lives so that there can be 
hope for peace and the continuation of the kind of freedoms that we 
have come to enjoy.
  Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his very 
eloquent statement.
  I yield to the distinguished gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lee).
  Ms. LEE. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the Chair of the Congressional 
Black Caucus for organizing this Special Order and for his leadership, 
especially for giving us one more chance to discuss this march to this 
needless and dangerous war. This is a really sad and very somber 
evening for many of us.
  Last September, the Congressional Black Caucus issued five principles 
on war with Iraq. The principles began by saying: ``We oppose a 
unilateral first-strike action by the United States without a clearly 
demonstrated and imminent threat of attack on the United States.'' All 
these months later, Mr. Speaker, we still have no evidence of an 
imminent threat to our country. Even the CIA in a declassified report 
has said that Saddam Hussein is unlikely to use weapons of mass 
destruction against the United States or our allies unless he himself 
is under dire threat of attack. We do not face an imminent threat.
  The second principle reads, ``Only Congress has the authority to 
declare war.'' Congress has not declared war. And the Constitution is 
unyielding on this point.
  The third principle states, ``Every diplomatic option must be 
exhausted.'' Our diplomatic options are not exhausted, although the 
President's patience apparently is. Through diplomatic engagement and 
inspections, we have successfully contained and restrained Saddam 
Hussein. The inspections process is working. It is just not finished 
yet.
  The fourth Congressional Black Caucus principle states, ``A 
unilateral first strike would undermine the moral authority of the 
United States, result in substantial loss of life, destabilize the 
Mideast region, and undermine the ability of our Nation to address 
unmet domestic priorities.'' All of these concerns are still with us, 
Mr. Speaker.
  The doctrine of preemption and the threat of preemptive war against 
Iraq do not make us safer. They make us less secure. This doctrine 
threatens to set a dangerous precedent that might then be cited by 
other countries, including other nuclear powers, to justify preemptive 
first strikes against perceived future threats. That is not a world we 
want to live in, and not an example we want to set. We also risk 
unleashing new waves of instability and destruction in the Middle East. 
And no one here questions for a minute that we have not met our 
priorities here at home. The Bush budget underfunds education, job 
training, health care, environmental protections, housing and a host of 
other critical and neglected priorities. And it underfunds all those 
programs without including one penny to cover the hundreds of billions 
of dollars that war and occupation in Iraq will cost. That is still to 
come.
  The fifth principle of the Congressional Black Caucus document from 
last fall reads, ``Any post-strike plan for maintaining stability in 
the region would be costly and would require a long-term commitment.'' 
Those facts are still very much with us today. A well-known Yale 
economist said that reconstruction and occupation in Iraq could cost 
well over $1 trillion. That is not something the President has 
acknowledged. It is certainly not in the budget that he has just 
submitted.
  We issued those principles last fall, last September, when the 
President claimed the unilateral right to attack Iraq with or without 
United Nations' authority and talked a lot about regime change. After 
all this time, we have returned to our starting point.
  Tonight we are on the eve of a war. We must take this opportunity, 
and I thank the gentleman from Maryland again for giving us the 
opportunity to make one last plea.
  I want to read excerpts from a letter sent to President Bush by 
really a great religious leader, the presiding Bishop of the Church of 
God in Christ, Bishop Gilbert Earl Patterson, and the General Board of 
the Church of God in Christ, which is the largest African American 
Christian denomination in the United States of America. Some of the 
excerpts are:
  ``Dear President Bush: We write to you as predominantly black clergy, 
intellectuals and informed laypersons of

[[Page 6494]]

community-serving churches of the Church of God in Christ to address 
matters of the deepest gravity, namely, that of war and peace as 
presented by your statements and those of Vice President Richard Cheney 
and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld concerning a preemptive attack 
upon Iraq.
  ``We are mindful that war, should it come to pass, will directly 
affect the safety and well-being of tens of thousands of our fellow 
citizens in the Armed Forces, of whom significant numbers are ethnic 
minorities in the enlisted as well as the officers and noncommissioned 
ranks.
  ``Our thoughts also extend to the safety and well-being of Iraqi 
civilians who have not lifted a hand against the United States. We are 
deeply concerned that critical moral reflection on the prospects of war 
has been overlooked by some in your administration. We do not advocate 
a weak America, unable to defend the innocents from tyranny of attack, 
but a strong America must examine itself before setting off to war.''
  Bishop Patterson goes on to say, ``We would agree that Iraq's 
President Saddam Hussein has demonstrated aggression against his 
neighbors in the past, some of which was unopposed, mind you, by the 
United States Government. We would also agree that if Iraq possessed 
weapons of mass destruction, this would be a matter of grave concern. 
In this regard, we believe that the United States' interests are best 
served by using the existing mechanisms of international law, 
collaboration and consultation with our allies, and the use of existing 
United Nations resolutions to support the work of weapons inspectors so 
they may detect and destroy any weapons of mass destruction found in 
Iraq.
  ``However, we do not find any moral justification for a preemptive 
strike in the absence of an attack or a real threat of an attack 
against the United States of America. A military strike of this nature 
puts the United States in the posture of aggressive warfare, not 
defense, which is precisely the behavior that we, and your 
administration, deplore in the Iraqi regime.
  ``Surely our Nation and its leaders can examine their own intentions 
in light of Holy Scripture before setting their feet upon the blood-
soaked path of war whose ultimate outcome is known with certainty only 
by the Maker of us all.''
  Mr. Speaker, in closing, I support our troops with all my heart. As a 
soldier's daughter, I know what their families are feeling now. I hope 
and pray for the return, the safe return, of our Armed Forces and for 
the safety of Iraqi civilians who will inevitably be caught in the 
crossfire of any conflict. And I hope and pray that our Nation finds an 
alternative to war.
  Once again, as Bishop Patterson said, money spent on war to destroy 
lives could instead be used to save lives by financing the alleviation 
of the impending famines in Southern Africa, or to provide clean 
drinking water to enhance the health of hundreds of thousands of poor, 
defenseless men, women and children throughout that continent. He said 
that these resources could also be productively directed toward 
providing treatment and prevention services for those afflicted by the 
HIV/AIDS holocaust in Africa, the United States and other countries 
around the world, not to forget the blight and ravages of economic 
depression in Appalachia and the inner cities of America.
  Once again, I just want to say to the gentleman from Maryland and to 
members of the Congressional Black Caucus, to this body here tonight, 
that we still have a window of opportunity, a very short window. 
Tonight we are making one last plea not only on behalf of ourselves, 
but on behalf of millions of people in our country, millions of people 
throughout the world who want to see a safe and secure America, who 
want to see a safe and secure world, who want to turn over to our 
children a world that is more secure, not less secure.
  Mr. CUMMINGS. I want to thank the gentlewoman for her statement. I 
just want to reiterate that the principles that the gentlewoman stated 
for the Congressional Black Caucus with regard to war were actually 
agreed upon by the Congressional Black Caucus back in September. Just 
approximately 2 weeks ago, the Caucus asked, by way of letter, the 
President to sit down with us so that we might talk about resolving 
this Iraq situation without war. The President has not seen fit to meet 
with us.
  It is my honor to yield to the distinguished gentlewoman from 
California (Ms. Waters).
  Ms. WATERS. Mr. Speaker, to the chairman of the Congressional Black 
Caucus, the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cummings), I want to thank him 
for taking time out in the schedule of the Congress of the United 
States to allow the members of the Congressional Black Caucus to take 
the floor to talk about our concerns and to describe our feelings about 
the preemptive strike that we are poised to carry out as we stand here 
tonight.

                              {time}  2200

  I thank the Chairman because he knows and I know that we are going to 
be criticized. We are going to be criticized, and there will be those 
who even call us unpatriotic. We will be criticized. We will be called 
unpatriotic, and there will be an attempt to intimidate us and say to 
us that at this point in time we should not raise these questions, we 
should not talk about our deep feelings and our concerns, we should 
only support whatever the President is doing.
  But I would like to remind those who would criticize us that we are 
indeed patriotic Americans. As a matter of fact, if we take a look at 
the history of African Americans in this country, one can only conclude 
that we are indeed patriotic. We believe in America. We believe in 
America despite the history of America as it relates to African 
Americans, despite slavery, despite discrimination, without racism. We 
stand by America. We have decided that it is our job and our 
responsibility to make America the kind of place that America can be 
and it should be, and so we take this floor this evening to try to 
raise the question how did we get to the point where the President of 
the United States is issuing an ultimatum to Saddam Hussein in Iraq to 
be out of that country within 48 hours, he and his sons, or face the 
consequences of a preemptive strike? How did we get to this point? How 
did we get to the point where all diplomatic efforts have been 
abandoned? How did we get to the point where we have some 250,000 to 
300,000 young men and women in Kuwait, in Qatar and on the sea awaiting 
the order to strike? Where did it all break down? How did we lose our 
allies? What made France and Russia and Germany and even China decide 
that they could not stand with the President of the United States in a 
second resolution? What made France say no matter what, they were 
poised to veto any resolution being described in the way the President 
of the United States was describing the second resolution?
  When we ask the question of how, when, and where did the diplomatic 
efforts fail, we cannot help but understand that the diplomatic efforts 
could not work because the case has not been made for preemptive 
strike. The case has not been made, and there is no documentation as of 
this date that even Saddam Hussein is harboring weapons of mass 
destruction.
  As we have sent our inspectors there, they have found some things; 
but we have also discovered that some things that were supposedly in 
place in Iraq were not in place. We listened very carefully as our 
Secretary of State described sheds and operations where weapons were 
being developed only to discover that they were old and dilapidated, 
full of dust with no electricity. As there was an attempt to document 
why we had to have this preemptive strike, we found each day that the 
representations were less than factual. As a matter of fact, our own 
intelligence community headed by the CIA said that they could not find 
in Iraq that which was being described by our own Secretary of State, 
the President of the United States.
  Some would say the President moved on this preemptive strike after 9-
11,

[[Page 6495]]

the President was so concerned about terrorism and 9-11 that he decided 
that he must take some action.
  The President of the United States of America had the support of this 
Congress to take action to find the terrorists, to bring them to the 
bar of justice. We said yes, Mr. President, 9-11 is a terrible thing. 
It was a terrible thing. We should not be the victims of terrorism, and 
we should find those who are responsible. We were told that Osama bin 
Laden and others were responsible. And we said, we support you, Mr. 
President. Let us go after Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar and any of 
the rest of those leaders leading al Qaeda that were responsible for 
terrorism.
  We are still looking for Osama bin Laden. Where is he, Mr. President? 
We still do not have Mullah Omar, supposedly one of the high operatives 
responsible for terrorism. Mr. President, not only do we support 
finding the terrorists, you have taken a lot of steps above and beyond 
what some of us even thought should be taken when you moved to change 
the Constitution of the United States to try to locate folks that 
supposedly were responsible. You have locked up people. Some of them we 
still do not know where they are. You have brought folks who still have 
not been identified with terrorism but are being held, but we have not 
had a breakthrough. We have not had a breakthrough, and we are worried 
that the war on terrorism has taken a back seat to a preemptive strike 
on Saddam Hussein.
  Mr. President, you cannot substitute a preemptive strike on Saddam 
Hussein for finding the terrorists. We want the terrorists to be found. 
We give you all the support that you need to do that. And, Mr. 
President, we want the homeland secured. We have given you all the 
support that you need for homeland security, but we find as of today 
the terrorists have not been located. Some of our airports are still 
exposed. We have nuclear power plants that are exposed. We have ports 
where we have containers that are still coming in that are not 
inspected; and as of this day, not all of the baggage that goes into 
the belly of the airplanes that are traveling throughout this country 
is inspected.
  Mr. President, we want to find the terrorists. We want to secure the 
homeland. We are worried that you have been diverted, that you are 
about to do this preemptive strike without the documentation.
  Yes, we know that Saddam Hussein has done some terrible things. We 
have been successful in containing him. I do not think that he presents 
us nearly as much of a problem as North Korea. If we take a look at Kim 
Jong Il in North Korea, we find that not only has he developed nuclear 
capability, he has opted out of the nuclear proliferation treaty. He 
has decided to test missiles. He has challenged us. He has interfered 
with our airplanes in the sky. What are you going to do about Kim Jong 
Il? And on top of that, we now discover that Iran has plutonium that 
could be developed into nuclear capability for weapons of war.
  Mr. President, something is wrong with this picture. What is wrong 
with this picture is this: we are sophisticated enough to know that 
some of our allies, Pakistan, have nuclear capability and so does India 
and they could go at each other any day of the week. We also know that 
Israel has nuclear capability. We also understand that Russia still has 
nuclear capability. There is too much nuclear capability in the world 
to talk about focusing our sights on Iraq that still does not have 
nuclear capability, and we still have not found the weapons of mass 
destruction.
  I know that Saddam Hussein is clever and of course he has been 
cooperating. The more we push him against the wall, the more he 
cooperates. Yes, we can now send our planes and we can do the 
surveillance. Yes, he is now dismantling the Samoud missiles. Yes, he 
continues to cooperate as we push him against the wall, and the more he 
cooperates, the more our allies and others say let us continue to do 
the inspections, let us see if there are weapons of mass destruction. 
We should not stop in the middle of these inspections.
  But there are those who say all of this talk is too late, that you 
have decided, Mr. President, that it is just a matter of time after 
issuing the ultimatum that we will move. I am naive enough to believe, 
I have enough hope, that even at this late date, you have identified 
that we will move at a time of our choice, that that time will not 
come. I still hope despite the billions of dollars that we have spent 
deploying these soldiers that we will bring them home.
  We love our soldiers. We support them and we embrace them. Our hearts 
are torn apart as we see these families torn apart, mothers and fathers 
leaving the babies. We watched this in the Gulf war only to find that 
our soldiers came home, many of them had no apartments. They had no 
homes. They had no furniture. We do not want to replay this. Yes, every 
country should be able to defend itself, but we are in no danger from 
Iraq. As a matter of fact, that is probably one of the weakest points 
on the globe for us to attack. We are not threatened by Saddam Hussein.
  Mr. President, I hope that you do not think that with this preemptive 
strike that somehow this will translate into we have a war on 
terrorism. It does not. We know the difference, Mr. President. Striking 
Saddam, striking Iraq is not fighting terrorism. What about our friends 
in Saudi Arabia who pay for the madrasas and the schools where right-
wing fundamentalism is taught? Those madrasas are the breeding grounds 
for the al Qaeda operation, but, no, they are our friends. We are tied 
to them because of oil. They are not a democracy. The House of Faud is 
but a very rich family that has been able to manipulate its way into a 
friendship and a relationship despite the fact the support and the 
money comes from Saudi Arabia. The terrorists, all of which have been 
identified with 9-11, all were born, bred in Saudi Arabia. Our friends 
that we have aligned ourselves within Pakistan as we have moved into 
Afghanistan turn out to be those who are supplying North Korea with 
some of the plutonium and the nuclear capability that they are 
developing. It does not add up, Mr. President.
  What we see and we are witnessing is the mismanagement of America. 
Someone today criticized Senator Daschle because he talked about the 
diplomatic disaster. Mr. President, it is a diplomatic disaster. We are 
watching before our very eyes the mismanagement of our beloved country. 
Our schools are falling apart. You said you wished to leave no child 
behind, but, Mr. President, you have not funded assistance to education 
that will have our children in the best possible situations where they 
can learn. Our health care system has fallen apart. In my city, in my 
county we are closing healthcare clinics. We are closing hospitals. And 
the stock market has not performed since before 9-11. What are you 
doing to stimulate this economy? Mr. President, I do not think the 
average person will believe that by eliminating the taxes on dividends 
that somehow it is going to stimulate this economy.
  Mr. President, you are not able to tell us what this war is going to 
cost and what the cleanup, what the revitalization, the reconstruction 
of Iraq is going to cost. The American people need to know where our 
dollars are going. The American people need to understand the cost of 
this war and why.
  Mr. President, the worst thing that could happen to us is that you 
have this preemptive strike, you go into Iraq, occupy it, and we spend 
billions of dollars after this so-called regime change where we are 
going to institute democracy, and the terrorists are still operating. 
When are you going to break up the al Qaeda cells right here in 
America? When are we going to get with our allies and put together a 
strong approach to rooting out the terrorists all over the world?
  Mr. President, we must raise these questions. We must raise these 
questions because we are patriots. We are folks who love this country. 
We are folks who have stood by this country no matter what, and we will 
continue to stand by this country. We will continue to stand by our 
soldiers. But, Mr. President, you are going to have to account for the 
leadership that you are

[[Page 6496]]

giving, and I say to you and all those who are advising you, be it 
Wolfowitz, be it Secretary of State Colin Powell, be it Condoleezza 
Rice, be it Carl Rove, or any of those in the inner circle, you are 
going to be held responsible for what takes place in this world, what 
takes place with this preemptive strike, what takes place with our 
soldiers and our families.

                              {time}  2215

  We would like to see this situation resolved in a way that will not 
cause the body bags to come home. We would like to see this situation 
resolved in a way that our young people would not be put in harm's way.
  It is not too late, Mr. President. We will all stand up and applaud 
you if you do the courageous thing of saying, yes, we deployed; yes, we 
spent billions of dollars to do it; but we do not have the allies, we 
cannot afford the costs, and we cannot afford the loss of lives. I am 
going to bring our soldiers home.
  We will stand with you and praise you and applaud you and say you are 
a great man. Unless you can do it that way, Mr. President, you are 
going to have to accept the responsibility.
  Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentlewoman for her 
statement. I just want to reiterate something that the distinguished 
gentlewoman said.
  I think every member of the Congressional Black Caucus wants Saddam 
Hussein to be disarmed. We believe that it can be done through peaceful 
means. We believe very strongly that we must not just stand on the 
sidelines and watch our troops go into harm's way and see the Iraqi 
people come into harm's way. So, we stand up at this last hour.
  Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to yield to the distinguished 
gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Payne).
  Mr. PAYNE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman of the Congressional 
Black Caucus for yielding. Let me say how proud I am of the outstanding 
job the gentleman has done in the short time he has been chairing our 
beloved caucus.
  As a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, I thank the gentleman 
for taking this Special Order. As we have recently celebrated Black 
History Month, I want to say how proud I am of our troops, all of our 
troops, white, black, Hispanic, that are there, even some persons who 
are there to fight who have green cards, who are risking their lives 
for this country, and they are not even citizens of this country. So I 
applaud all of our young people who are there to stand up for our 
country when our Commander in Chief sends them to a place.
  As we have just recently celebrated Black History Month, we look at 
African Americans who were the first to die in this Nation. On March 4, 
1770, in the Boston Massacre, Crispus Attucks was the first person to 
die when those five patriots died at the Boston Massacre, shot down by 
the British. It was at the Battle of Bunker Hill that Peter Salem, who 
was a Minuteman, killed the commander of the British troops, the 
Redcoats, at the Battle of Bunker Hill; Peter Salem, who was a patriot, 
who I had to graduate from high school and college to find out about 
these tributes.
  We can talk about the 5,000 African Americans who fought in the 
Revolutionary War. And we go on to the Civil War, where the 54th 
Regiment, former slaves, who fought valiantly; or the Revolutionary 
War, where Haiti sent troops in the Battle of Savannah to fight for the 
independence of the United States against Britain, black men who were 
former slaves in Haiti came here to fight. So people of color have shed 
their blood for many years for this country, or the Civil War, as I 
mentioned, with the 54th Regiment.
  When we take the 1898 Spanish-American War, when Teddy Roosevelt and 
the Rough Riders were about to be annihilated at the Battle of San Juan 
Hill, it was the Buffalo Soldiers who came and prevented that from 
happening. Private Johnson and Private Roberts served 181 days in the 
trenches away from their battalion with 30 German prisoners of war, 
over a half a year in the trenches in World War I, to get the medal by 
the French, but not the Americans.
  Even recently, Colonel Anderson from New York was on the ill-fated 
Columbia, one of the seven persons to die in that NASA tragedy, with a 
man from Israel and a woman who migrated here from India.
  So our country is great. So I just wanted to say that we in the 
Congressional Black Caucus are proud of our history and the history 
that African Americans have contributed to this country.
  But today we stand at the threshold of war with Iraq. It appears that 
President Bush intends to send our troops into combat without any 
further attempt at diplomacy and without the support of long-time U.S. 
allies. In so doing, our Nation will be setting a high-risk precedent 
wherein we assert the right to engage in preemptive warfare whether or 
not we are under direct military threat.
  What about India and Pakistan? What about if they did a preemptive 
strike on one another? What about China and Taiwan? What happens then 
if they follow our lead? We are setting a dangerous precedent.
  Then our allies that we are criticizing, Belgium, France and Italy, 
those who we were trying to bring on our side, like China and Russia, 
we have lost a lot of diplomacy with this act.
  We are opening a door to an era which deemphasizes diplomacy and 
devalues peaceful solutions through negotiations.
  We have been able to contain Saddam Hussein through the use of no-fly 
zones. More recently we obtained a concession from Iraq which gives us 
the authority to use our U-2 spy planes, the French Mirage planes and 
the Russian Antonovs, which monitor daily activities in Iraq.
  If the President proceeds with his plan to attack a country without a 
direct provocation, ours will be a world that is filled with greater 
fear and danger, greater than ever before in our history. Innocent 
lives on all sides will be lost. I think it is tragic that we are 
willing to pay the price of human lives that war extracts when we have 
not fully explored all diplomatic channels through the United Nations.
  As a member of the House Committee on International Relations, I have 
been directly involved in monitoring elections overseas and helping to 
resolve very serious conflicts. In South Africa we had a solution where 
it seemed impossible to reach consensus after years of apartheid and 
bitter racial divisions, and yet we see people in South Africa living 
in a new, nonracial Democratic South Africa.
  I traveled to Northern Ireland, where generations of violence and 
animosity have created seemingly insurmountable differences. Yet with 
great patience and diplomacy, former Senator George Mitchell was able 
to bring both sides to the table to forge the Good Friday Accords.
  In Rwanda, a war-torn country where genocide took place as the world 
watched, we saw close to 1 million people killed. Opposite sides now 
live together, peacefully, even some having to share the same home 
because of coming back and joining together in a house that was 
previously occupied by the other family, and they are looking forward 
to democratic elections.
  My point is no matter how dire a situation, diplomacy can work. 
Before we risk the lives of young men and women in uniform, which I 
support and all of us in the Congressional Black Caucus support 100 
percent, as well as the countless citizens in both the Middle East and 
our own country, should we not do everything in our power to have a 
peaceful solution to the situation in Iraq?
  We know that war takes terrible tolls. Tragically, even as technology 
advances, incidents of friendly fire where our soldiers are 
inadvertently killed by our own troops are on the rise. The number of 
incidents have grown from 3 percent casualties in World War II to over 
24 percent in the Persian Gulf War. That number is expected to 
increase, our own soldiers killed inadvertently by our own weapons. 
Recently there was the tragedy of Canadian soldiers brought down by 
mistake.

[[Page 6497]]

  So, as I conclude, I implore President Bush to reconsider his 
decision before we make a tragic mistake from which there will be no 
turning back.
  Mr. CUMMINGS. I want to thank the gentleman.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Towns).
  Mr. TOWNS. Mr. Speaker, we really appreciate the gentleman taking the 
time to inform the people of how important this situation is and that 
we should not move forward.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise today to express my strong concerns about the 
movement of this country towards war with Iraq. I challenge anybody to 
say, ED, you are unpatriotic because you are opposing the war.
  Mr. Speaker, let me be clear: I support our troops. I served in the 
military. When my country called, I answered. So I stand here as 
someone who understands the duty of military service and the 
willingness to make the ultimate sacrifice for our country, and it is 
precisely because I do support our troops and their families that I 
cannot understand the unwillingness to send them into harm's way 
without a clear and present danger to the people of the United States 
of America.
  It is for that reason that in October 2002 I voted against the 
authorization to allow the President to use United States Armed Forces 
in Iraq without prior congressional approval. Nothing has happened 
since that time which would cause me to change my position.
  Some people would say, well, what about the weapons of mass 
destruction? Well, there are a lot of weapons of mass destruction. When 
I look at the fact that we have an educational system that is in 
shambles, to me that is a weapon of mass destruction. When we have 41 
million people with no health insurance in the United States of 
America, to me that is a weapon of mass destruction. When we have 
people that have no jobs and no way of getting jobs, to me that is a 
weapon of mass destruction. When we have no prescription drug program 
for our senior citizens in this Nation, that is a weapon of mass 
destruction.
  So I come tonight to make an appeal, knowing that time is running 
out. But I hope that we will be able to continue to have some dialogue 
and that we will be able to bring our troops home.
  Yes, I am in support of the troops. Yes, I am in support of the 
troops' families. And I am hoping we can bring them home without any 
further delay. We need to continue to discuss this. We need to continue 
to talk.
  I am not convinced that the United States of America is in harm's 
way. When I listened to experts on terrorism, Tom Ridge, who heads 
Homeland Security, whom I have tremendous respect for, has indicated 
that we will place the people of the United States of America in 
jeopardy because of terrorism if we attack. I think that when we hear 
the cry coming from experts around the Nation who are pointing this 
out, and have pointed it out so clearly, we should listen to those 
experts and to go another way.
  So I am hoping and praying that, some way or another, that this 
situation can be diverted, and that we will not send our people into 
harm's way.
  So as I conclude tonight, Mr. Speaker, I am not willing to risk the 
lives of Americans at home and abroad to fight a war without clear 
rationale, a clear purpose and a definite end game. The administration 
has not made this clear, and I pray the leadership of this Nation will 
consider and do what is right by bringing our soldiers home.

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