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Statement of Senator Patrick Leahy
On The Senate Floor
Concerning Iraq
The Countdown To War
March 13, 2003
Mr. President, last Thursday at his press conference, the President
gave his reasons to justify the use of military force to remove Saddam
Hussein from power.
The President said again that he has not made up his mind to go to
war, but his own advisers are saying that even if Iraq fully complies
with UN Security Council Resolution 1441, Saddam Hussein must be
removed from power.
The President said his goal is protecting the American people from
terrorism, a goal we all share, but he offered no evidence that Iraq
had anything to do with the September 11 attacks or any details of
Iraq’s links to al Queda.
He offered no new information about the potential costs of a war,
either in American and Iraqi lives, or in dollars. Both Republicans
and Democrats have urged the President to be more forthcoming with the
American people, yet he is apparently ready to send hundreds of
thousands of the sons and daughters of American taxpayers into battle
without saying anything about the costs and risks.
The President repeatedly spoke of the danger of "doing nothing," as
if doing nothing is what those who urge patience and caution – with
war only as a last resort – are recommending. In fact, virtually no
one is saying that we should do nothing about Saddam Hussein.
Even most of the millions of people who have joined protests and
demonstrations against the use of force without UN Security Council
authorization, are not saying that the world should ignore the threat
posed by Saddam Hussein.
Yet that is the President’s answer to those who oppose a preemptive
U.S. invasion, and who, contrary to wanting to do nothing, want to
give the United Nations more time to try to solve this crisis without
war.
The President also failed to address a key concern that divides
Americans, that divides us from many of our closest European allies,
that divides our allies from each other, and that divides the UN
Security Council. That issue is not whether or not Saddam Hussein is a
deceptive, despicable, dangerous despot who should be disarmed. There
is little if any disagreement about that.
Nor is it whether or not force should ever be used. Most people
accept that the United States, like any country, has a right of self
defense if faced with an imminent threat. And if the UN inspectors
fail to disarm Iraq, force may become the only option.
Most people also agree that a U.S.-led invasion would quickly
overwhelm and defeat Iraq’s ill-equipped, demoralized army.
Rather, the President said almost nothing about the concern that by
attacking Iraq to enforce Security Council Resolution 1441 without the
support of key allies on the UN Security Council, we risk seriously
weakening the Security Council’s future effectiveness and our own
ability to rally international support – not only to prevent this war
and future wars, but to deal with other global threats like terrorism.
And this concern is exacerbated by the increasing resentment of the
Administration’s domineering and simplistic "you are either with us or
against us" approach, which has already damaged long-standing
relationships, both with our neighbors in this hemisphere and our
friends across the Atlantic.
The President says that if the Security Council does not support
the use of force today, it risks becoming irrelevant. But the
President has it backward. The Security Council will not become
irrelevant because it refuses to agree with the President of the
United States. Rather, the Security Council’s effectiveness is
threatened if the United States, the world’s only superpower, ignores
the will of key allies on the Security Council regarding the
enforcement of a Security Council resolution.
The President was also asked by several members of the press why
there is such fervent opposition to his policy among Americans and
some of our oldest allies, when only a year and a half ago, after the
September 11 attacks, the world was united in sympathy with the United
States. He had no answer.
The President should heed the words of former National Security
Adviser Brent Scowcroft, who was an architect of the 1991 Gulf War.
General Scowcroft has strongly criticized the Administration’s ad hoc
approach based on "coalitions of the willing," which he calls
"fundamentally, fatally flawed." He said: "As we’ve seen in the debate
about Iraq, it’s already given us an image of arrogance and
unilateralism, and we’re paying a very high price for that image. If
we get to the point where everyone secretly hopes the United States
gets a black eye because we're so obnoxious, then we’ll be totally
hamstrung in the war on terror. We’ll be like Gulliver with the
Lilliputians."
Mr. President, for two hundred years, people of every nationality
have looked up to the United States because of our values, our
integrity, our tolerance and respect for others. These are the
qualities that have set the United States apart. But today, while most
countries share our goal of disarming Saddam Hussein, we are being
vilified for our arrogance, for our disdain for international law and
our intolerance of opposing views.
A distinguished American career diplomat, John Brady Kiesling,
echoed General Scowcroft’s concerns about the practical harm done to
U.S. interests and influence abroad in a letter he recently wrote to
Secretary of State Colin Powell, proffering his resignation as an act
of protest about the Administration’s policy toward Iraq.
I suspect Mr. Kiesling’s eloquent and heart-felt explanation of how
he reached the difficult decision to give up his career, expresses the
feelings and concerns of some other American diplomats who are
representing the United States in our embassies and missions around
the world. I ask unanimous consent that Mr. Kiesling’s letter to the
Secretary be entered in the Record at the conclusion of my remarks.
Mr. President, while I was disappointed by the President’s remarks
last week, the Bush Administration and the Pakistani Government should
be commended for the capture of Khalid Sheik Mohammed, one of al
Queda’s top leaders who was reportedly the mastermind of the September
11 attacks. Whether others within al Queda will quickly fill Mr.
Mohammed’s shoes remains to be seen, but the fact that the U.S.
government, and other governments, are methodically tracking these
people down sends an important message and should give some comfort to
the American people.
This is encouraging, and let us hope that soon we can celebrate the
capture of Osama bin Laden. Tracking down al Queda should be our
highest priority.
But the world is increasingly apprehensive as the United States
appears to be marching inexorably towards war with Iraq. Today, there
are more than 250,000 American men and women in uniform in the Persian
Gulf, preparing for the order to enter Iraq, and we hear that a
decision to launch an attack must be made within a matter of days
because it is too costly to keep so many troops deployed overseas.
In other words, now that we have spent billions of dollars to ship
all those soldiers over there, we need to use them "because we cannot
back down now," as I have heard some people say. Mr. President, it
would be hard to think of a worse reason to rush to war than that.
We should not back down. Saddam Hussein must be disarmed. Doing
nothing, and I agree with the President about this, would mean that
the United Nations is unwilling to enforce its own resolutions
concerning perhaps the most serious threat the world faces today – the
proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. That would be
unacceptable. The UN Security Council ordered Iraq to fully disclose
its weapons of mass destruction, and Iraq has not done so.
And I agree with those who say that the only reason Saddam Hussein
is even grudgingly cooperating with the UN inspectors and destroying
Iraqi missiles is because of the build up of U.S. troops on Iraq’s
border. I have commended the President for refocusing the world’s
attention on Saddam Hussein’s failure to disarm. I also recognize that
the time may come when the use of force to enforce the UN Security
Council resolution is the only option.
But are proposals to give the UN inspectors more time unreasonable,
when it could solidify support for the use of force if that becomes
the only option?
Despite the President’s assertion that Iraq poses an imminent
threat to the United States, that assertion begs credulity when the UN
inspectors are making some progress and a quarter of a million
American soldiers are poised to invade. Absent a credible, imminent
threat, a decision to enforce Resolution 1441 should only be made by
the Security Council, if it becomes clear that the inspectors cannot
do the job, not by the United States or any other government alone.
The President says war is a last resort. If he feels that way, why
do he and his advisers want so desperately to short circuit the
inspections process? Why is he so anxious to spend billions of dollars
to buy the cooperation of friends who do not yet believe war is
necessary? Why is he so unconcerned about the predictable, hostile
reaction of the Muslim world to the occupation of Iraq, perhaps for
years, by a U.S. military "government"? Why is the President so
determined to run roughshod over our traditional alliances and
partnerships, which have served us well and whose support we need both
today and in the future?
I cannot pretend to understand the thinking of those in the
Administration who for months or even longer have seemed possessed
with a kind of messianic zeal in favor of war. A preemptive war
against Iraq without a declaration of war by Congress or the UN
Security Council’s support, may be easy to win, but it could violate
international law and cause lasting damage to our alliances and to our
ability to obtain the cooperation of other nations in meeting so many
other global challenges.
Just recently, Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge warned that a
war with Iraq could bring more threats and more terrorist attacks
within the United States. The CIA Director has testified that Saddam
Hussein is more likely to use chemical or biological weapons if he is
attacked. Yet we are marching ahead as if these warnings do not
matter.
I have said before that this war is not inevitable, and I still
believe it can be avoided. But I fear that the President, despite
opposition among the American people, in the UN, and around the world,
is no longer listening to anyone except those within his inner circle
who are eager to fight. I hope the Iraqi Government comes to its
senses. I hope we do not walk away from the United Nations. I hope we
do not decide that just because our troops are there we cannot afford
to wait.
I yield the floor.
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"The Diplomat's Goodbye"
The Washington Post
Outlook Section
Sunday, March 9, 2003
[Letters of resignation, particularly those from State Department
diplomats to their superiors, are not ordinarily a forum for
disagreements about the course of American foreign policy. The
following letter of resignation, written by career diplomat John Brady
Kiesling to Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, is unusual for its
content and length. Kiesling, 45, served in several U.S. embassies
before his most recent post in Athens. He shared a 1994 award from the
American Foreign Service Association for "constructive dissent" after
he and 12 others signed a letter of protest over the lack of U.S.
intervention in the conflict in Bosnia.]
February 27, 2003
Dear Mr. Secretary:
I am writing you to submit my resignation from the Foreign Service
of the United States and from my position as Political Counselor in
U.S. Embassy Athens, effective March 7. I do so with a heavy heart.
The baggage of my upbringing included a felt obligation to give
something back to my country. Service as a U.S. diplomat was a dream
job. I was paid to understand foreign languages and cultures, to seek
out diplomats, politicians, scholars and journalists, and to persuade
them that U.S. interests and theirs fundamentally coincided. My faith
in my country and its values was the most powerful weapon in my
diplomatic arsenal.
It is inevitable that during twenty years with the State Department
I would become more sophisticated and cynical about the narrow and
selfish bureaucratic motives that sometimes shaped our policies. Human
nature is what it is, and I was rewarded and promoted for
understanding human nature. But until this Administration it had been
possible to believe that by upholding the policies of my president I
was also upholding the interests of the American people and the world.
I believe it no longer.
The policies we are now asked to advance are incompatible not only
with American values but also with American interests. Our fervent
pursuit of war with Iraq is driving us to squander the international
legitimacy that has been America's most potent weapon of both offense
and defense since the days of Woodrow Wilson. We have begun to
dismantle the largest and most effective web of international
relationships the world has ever known. Our current course will bring
instability and danger, not security.
The sacrifice of global interests to domestic politics and to
bureaucratic self-interest is nothing new, and it is certainly not a
uniquely American problem. Still, we have not seen such systematic
distortion of intelligence, such systematic manipulation of American
opinion, since the war in Vietnam. The September 11 tragedy left us
stronger than before, rallying around us a vast international
coalition to cooperate for the first time in a systematic way against
the threat of terrorism. But rather than take credit for those
successes and build on them, this Administration has chosen to make
terrorism a domestic political tool, enlisting a scattered and largely
defeated Al Qaeda as its bureaucratic ally. We spread disproportionate
terror and confusion in the public mind, arbitrarily linking the
unrelated problems of terrorism and Iraq. The result, and perhaps the
motive, is to justify a vast misallocation of shrinking public wealth
to the military and to weaken the safegua! rds that protect American
citizens from the heavy hand of government. September 11 did not do as
much damage to the fabric of American society as we seem determined to
do to ourselves. Is the Russia of the late Romanovs really our model,
a selfish, superstitious empire thrashing toward self-destruction in
the name of a doomed status quo?
We should ask ourselves why we have failed to persuade more of the
world that a war with Iraq is necessary. We have over the past two
years done too much to assert to our world partners that narrow and
mercenary U.S. interests override the cherished values of our
partners. Even where our aims were not in question, our consistency is
at issue. The model of Afghanistan is little comfort to allies
wondering on what basis we plan to rebuild the Middle East, and in
whose image and interests. Have we indeed become blind, as Russia is
blind in Chechnya, as Israel is blind in the Occupied Territories, to
our own advice, that overwhelming military power is not the answer to
terrorism? After the shambles of post-war Iraq joins the shambles in
Grozny and Ramallah, it will be a brave foreigner who forms ranks with
Micronesia to follow where we lead.
We have a coalition still, a good one. The loyalty of many of our
friends is impressive, a tribute to American moral capital built up
over a century. But our closest allies are persuaded less that war is
justified than that it would be perilous to allow the U.S. to drift
into complete solipsism. Loyalty should be reciprocal. Why does our
President condone the swaggering and contemptuous approach to our
friends and allies this Administration is fostering, including among
its most senior officials. Has oderint dum metuant [Ed. note: Latin
for "Let them hate so long as they fear," thought to be a favorite
saying of Caligula] really become our motto?
I urge you to listen to America's friends around the world. Even
here in Greece, purported hotbed of European anti-Americanism, we have
more and closer friends than the American newspaper reader can
possibly imagine. Even when they complain about American arrogance,
Greeks know that the world is a difficult and dangerous place, and
they want a strong international system, with the U.S. and EU in close
partnership. When our friends are afraid of us rather than for us, it
is time to worry. And now they are afraid. Who will tell them
convincingly that the United States is as it was, a beacon of liberty,
security and justice for the planet?
Mr. Secretary, I have enormous respect for your character and
ability. You have preserved more international credibility for us than
our policy deserves, and salvaged something positive from the excesses
of an ideological and self-serving Administration. But your loyalty to
the President goes too far. We are straining beyond its limits an
international system we built with such toil and treasure, a web of
laws, treaties, organizations and shared values that sets limits on
our foes far more effectively than it ever constrained America's
ability to defend its interests.
I am resigning because I have tried and failed to reconcile my
conscience with my ability to represent the current U.S.
Administration. I have confidence that our democratic process is
ultimately self-correcting, and hope that in a small way I can
contribute from outside to shaping policies that better serve the
security and prosperity of the American people and the world we share.
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