[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 1]
[House]
[Pages 461-462]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




     FOCUSING CONGRESS' ATTENTION ON THE BASIS FOR THE WAR IN IRAQ

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from New York (Mr. Hinchey) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. HINCHEY. Mr. Speaker, as we begin this second session of the 
108th Congress, there is a great deal of very important work that 
remains for us to accomplish.
  Primarily, among those things that need to be done is simply this: 
this Congress needs to focus its attention on the basis for the war in 
Iraq, why we are there; why that war was carried out; and what were the 
basic reasons behind it.
  We were told initially by the administration that there was a 
connection between Iraq and the attack on our

[[Page 462]]

country of September 11, 2001, and that there was a relationship 
between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. That has proven to be completely 
false.
  Subsequently, this Congress was told repeatedly, even in classified 
briefings right here on the floor of the House of Representatives, 
carried out by the Secretary of Defense and others, that the reason we 
were going to war in Iraq was because of the fact that Iraq possessed 
chemical and biological weapons, so-called weapons of mass destruction. 
And as the President put it, Iraq constituted a deep and ongoing threat 
to the United States; and as Vice President Cheney put it, Iraq 
constitutes an imminent threat to the United States because of these 
so-called weapons of mass destruction, chemical and biological weapons, 
which were alleged to be in Iraq in large numbers.
  We have now come to learn quite clearly that that was wrong, that 
there were no weapons of mass destruction, no chemical or biological 
weapons in any significant amount held in Iraq by Saddam Hussein or by 
anyone else. Many of us knew that. Many of us knew that 15 months ago 
when this Congress voted on a resolution authorizing the administration 
to carry out a war in Iraq. We knew it, we said so, and we voted 
against that resolution.
  Nevertheless, many others were taken in by what was coming out of the 
White House and elsewhere within the administration. And they voted for 
the war in Iraq, many of them, based on the belief that they were being 
told the truth about the possession of weapons of mass destruction by 
the regime of Saddam Hussein. Again, now we know very clearly that that 
was not the case and that the administration knew it was not the case.
  Most recently we have the report from the outgoing head of the 
American weapons inspection team in Iraq, David Kay. David Kay has now 
completed his report as he retires from that position, and he has said 
to us very, very clearly in that report that there were no weapons of 
mass destruction in Iraq, no chemical or biological weapons; that the 
biological and chemical weapons that were there, many of them were 
destroyed in the first Gulf War in 1991 and the rest were discovered 
and destroyed by the ongoing United Nations weapons inspection program.
  We also have information from the Carnegie Endowment for 
International Peace, which has done a very comprehensive study of the 
issue of so-called weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The Carnegie 
Endowment for International Peace has set forth in a very detailed 
report that there were no weapons of mass destruction held by the 
Saddam Hussein regime not since the end of the first Gulf War, and 
shortly thereafter they were destroyed as a result of weapons 
inspection program, the U.N. weapons inspection program.
  Again, another clear indication that the premise that was laid forth 
by the administration to this Congress in order to get a resolution 
passed authorizing the carrying out of that war was false. It was 
fabricated. And this Congress was misled.
  That leaves us with the very serious problem of finding out why that 
was done and who was responsible for doing it. That is important 
because of the situation we currently find ourselves in in Iraq, 
including the situation we find ourselves in with regard to the war on 
terrorism.
  Our attention has been diverted away from al Qaeda and away from the 
war on terrorism. And we find ourselves in Iraq in a war that has 
already cost more than 500 American lives. The lives of more than 500 
American servicemen and -women have been lost. Another more than 2,500 
American servicemen and -women have been seriously wounded, all on the 
basis of pretense.
  Therefore, we must conduct a complete and thorough investigation as 
to what happened, and that investigation must commence immediately.

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