"Blind and
improvident," Mr. President. "Blind and improvident." Congress
would be wise to heed those words today, for as sure as the sun
rises in the east, we are embarking on a course of action with
regard to Iraq that, in its haste, is both blind and
improvident. We are rushing into war without fully discussing
why, without thoroughly considering the consequences, or without
making any attempt to explore what steps we might take to avert
conflict.
The newly bellicose mood that permeates this
White House is unfortunate, all the moreso because it is clearly
motivated by campaign politics. Republicans are already
running attack ads against Democrats on Iraq. Democrats favor
fast approval of a resolution so they can change the subject to
domestic economic problems. (NY Times 9/20/2002)
Before risking the lives of American troops, all
members of Congress – Democrats and Republicans alike – must
overcome the siren song of political polls and focus strictly on the
merits, not the politics, of this most serious issue.
The resolution before us today is not only a
product of haste; it is also a product of presidential hubris.
This resolution is breathtaking in its scope. It redefines the
nature of defense, and reinterprets the Constitution to suit the
will of the Executive Branch. It would give the President blanket
authority to launch a unilateral preemptive attack on a sovereign
nation that is perceived to be a threat to the United
States. This is an unprecedented and unfounded interpretation
of the President's authority under the Constitution, not to
mention the fact that it stands the charter of the United Nations on
its head.
Representative Abraham Lincoln, in a letter to
William H. Herndon, stated: "Allow the President to invade a
neighboring nation whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an
invasion, and you allow him to do so whenever he may choose to say
he deems it necessary for such purpose - - and you allow him to make
war at pleasure. Study to see if you can fix any limit to his
power in this respect, after you have given him so much as you
propose. If, to-day, he should choose to say he thinks it
necessary to invade Canada, to prevent the British from invading us,
how could you stop him? You may say to him, 'I see no
probability of the British invading us' but he will say to you 'be
silent; I see it, if you don't.'
"The provision of the Constitution giving the
war-making power to Congress, was dictated, as I understand it, by
the following reasons. Kings had always been involving and
impoverishing their people in wars, pretending generally, if not
always, that the good of the people was the object. This, our
Convention understood to be the most oppressive of all Kingly
oppressions; and they resolved to so frame the Constitution that no
one man should hold the power of bringing this oppression upon
us. But your view destroys the whole matter, and places our
President where kings have always stood."
If he could speak to us today, what would
Lincoln say of the Bush doctrine concerning preemptive strikes?
In a September 18 report, the Congressional
Research Service had this to say about the preemptive use of
military force:
The historical record indicates that the United
States has never, to date, engaged in a "preemptive" military
attack against another nation. Nor has the United States
ever attacked another nation militarily prior to its first
having been attacked or prior to U.S. citizens or interests
first having been attacked, with the singular exception of the
Spanish-American War. The Spanish-American War is unique in
that the principal goal of United States military action was to
compel Spain to grant Cuba its political independence.
The Congressional Research Service also noted
that the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 "represents a threat situation
which some may argue had elements more parallel to those presented
by Iraq today – but it was resolved without a "preemptive" military
attack by the United States."
Article I, Section 8, of the Constitution grants
Congress the power to declare war and to call forth the militia "to
execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel
Invasions." Nowhere in the Constitution is it written that the
President has the authority to call forth the militia to preempt a
perceived threat. And yet, the resolution before the Senate avers
that the President "has authority under the Constitution to
take action in order to deter and prevent acts of international
terrorism against the United States, as Congress recognized
in the joint resolution on Authorization for Use of Miliary
Force" following the September 11 terrorist attack. What a cynical
twisting of words! The reality is that Congress, exercising
the authority granted to it under the Constitution, granted the
President specific and limited authority to use force against the
perpetrators of the September 11 attack. Nowhere was there an
implied recognition of inherent authority under the
Constitution to "deter and prevent" future acts of terrorism.
Think for a moment of the precedent that this
resolution will set, not just for this President but for future
Presidents. From this day forward, American Presidents will be
able to invoke Senate Joint Resolution 46 as justification for
launching preemptive military strikes against any sovereign nations
that they perceive to be a threat. Other nations will be able
to hold up the United States as the model to justify their military
adventures. Do you not think that India and Pakistan, China
and Taiwan, Russia and Georgia are closely watching the outcome of
this debate? Do you not think that future adversaries will look to
this moment to rationalize the use of military force to achieve who
knows what ends?
Perhaps a case can be made that Iraq poses such
a clear and immediate danger to the United States that preemptive
military action is the only way to deal with the threat. To be
sure, weapons of mass destruction are a 20th century
horror that the Framers of the Constitution had no way of
foreseeing. But they did foresee the frailty of human nature
and the inherent danger of concentrating too much power in one
individual. That is why the Framers bestowed on Congress, not
the President, the power to declare war.
As James Madison wrote in 1793, "In no part of
the constitution is more wisdom to be found, than in the clause
which confides the question of war or peace to the legislature, and
not to the executive department. Beside the objection to such
a mixture to heterogeneous powers, the trust and the temptation
would be too great for any one man...."
Congress has a responsibility to exercise with
extreme care the power to declare war. There is no weightier matter
to be considered. A war against Iraq will affect thousands if not
tens of thousands of lives, and perhaps alter the course of history.
It will surely affect the balance of power in the Middle East.
It is not a decision to be taken in haste, under the glare of
election year politics and the pressure of artificial
deadlines. And yet any observer can see that that is exactly
what the Senate is proposing to do.
The Senate is rushing to vote on whether to
declare war on Iraq without pausing to ask why. Why is war
being dealt with not as a last resort but as a first resort?
Why is Congress being pressured to act now, as of today, 33 days
before a general election when a third of the Senate and the entire
House of Representatives are in the final, highly politicized, weeks
of election campaigns? As recently as Tuesday (Oct. 1),
the President said he had not yet made up his mind about whether to
go to war with Iraq. And yet Congress is being exhorted to
give the President open-ended authority now, to exercise whenever he
pleases, in the event that he decides to invade Iraq. Why is
Congress elbowing past the President to authorize a military
campaign that the President may or may not even decide to
pursue? Aren't we getting ahead of ourselves?
The last UN weapons inspectors left Iraq in
October of 1998. We are confident that Saddam Hussein retained
some stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, and that he has
since embarked on a crash course to build up his chemical and
biological warfare capability. Intelligence reports also
indicate that he is seeking nuclear weapons, but has not yet
achieved nuclear capability. It is now October of 2002. Four
years have gone by in which neither this administration nor the
previous one felt compelled to invade Iraq to protect against the
imminent threat of weapons of mass destruction. Until today. Until
33 days until election day. Now we are being told that we must
act immediately, before adjournment and before the elections. Why
the rush?
Yes, we had September 11. But we must not
make the mistake of looking at the resolution before us as just
another offshoot of the war on terror. We know who was behind
the September 11 attacks on the United States. We know it was
Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda terrorist network. We have dealt
with al Qaeda and with the Taliban government that sheltered it – we
have routed them from Afghanistan and we are continuing to pursue
them in hiding.
So where does Iraq enter the equation? No
one in the Administration has been able to produce any solid
evidence linking Iraq to the September 11 attack. Iraq had
biological and chemical weapons long before September 11. We
knew it then, and we know it now. Iraq has been an enemy of
the United States for more than a decade. If Saddam
Hussein is such an imminent threat to the United States, why hasn't
he attacked us already? The fact that Osama bin Laden attacked
the United States does not, de facto, mean that Saddam Hussein is
now in a lock and load position and is readying an attack on the
United States. In truth, there is nothing in the deluge of
Administration rhetoric over Iraq that is of such moment that it
would preclude the Senate from setting its own timetable and taking
the time for a thorough and informed discussion of this crucial
issue.
The President is using the Oval Office as a
bully pulpit to sound the call to arms, but it is from Capitol Hill
that such orders must flow. The people, through their elected
representatives, must make that decision. It is here that
debate must take place and where the full spectrum of the public's
desires, concerns, and misgivings must be heard. We should not
allow ourselves to be pushed into one course or another in the face
of a full court publicity press from the White House. We have,
rather, a duty to the nation and her sons and daughters to carefully
examine all possible courses of action and to consider the long term
consequences of any decision to act.
As to separation of powers, Justice Louis
Brandeis observed: "the doctrine of the separation of powers was
adopted by the Convention of 1787, not to promote efficiency but to
preclude the exercise of arbitrary power." (Myers v. United
States, 1926)
No one supports Saddam Hussein. If he were
to disappear tomorrow, no one would shed a tear around the
world. I would not. My handkerchief would remain
dry. But the principle of one government deciding to eliminate
another government, using force to do so, and taking that action in
spite of world disapproval, is a very disquieting thing. I am
concerned that it has the effect of destabilizing the world
community of nations. I am concerned that it fosters a climate
of suspicion and mistrust in U.S. relations with other nations. The
United States is not a rogue nation, given to unilateral action in
the face of worldwide opprobrium.
I am also concerned about the consequences of a
U.S. invasion of Iraq. It is difficult to imagine that Saddam
Hussein, who has been ruthless in gaining and staying in power,
would give up without a fight. He is a man who has not shirked
from using chemical weapons against his own people. I fear
that he would use everything in his arsenal against an invasion
force, or against an occupation force, up to and including whatever
chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons he might still have.
Iraq is not Afghanistan, impoverished by decades of war, internal
strife, and stifling religious oppression. Though its military
forces are much diminished, Iraq has a strong central command and
much greater governmental control over its forces and its
people. It is a large country that has spent years on a
wartime footing, and it still has some wealth.
Nor do I think that the Iraqi people would
necessarily rise up against Saddam Hussein in the event of a U.S.
invasion, even if there is an undercurrent of support for his
overthrow. The Iraqi people have spent decades living in fear
of Saddam Hussein and his network of informers and security
forces. There has been no positive showing, in the form of
riots or large and active internal opposition groups, that popular
sentiment in Iraq supports a governmental overthrow or the
installation of a democratic or republican form of government.
There is no tradition of democracy in Iraq's long history. There is,
however, a natural instinct to favor the known over the unknown, and
in this instance, the U.S. is the unknown factor. The
President and his cabinet have suggested that this would be a war of
relatively short duration. If that is true, which I doubt, but
if it were, why would the Iraqi populace rush out to welcome the
U.S. forces. In a few weeks, they might have to answer to the
remnants of Saddam Hussein's security forces. A prudent Iraqi
would just put his or her head under the bedcovers and not come out
until the future became clear.
A U.S. invasion of Iraq that proved successful
and which resulted in the overthrow of the government would not be a
simple effort. The aftermath of that effort would require a
long term occupation. The President has said that he would
overthrow Saddam Hussein and establish a new government that would
recognize all interest groups in Iraq. This would presumably
include the Kurds to the north and the Shiite Muslims to the
south. Because the entire military and security apparatus of
Iraq would have to be replaced, the U.S. would have to provide
interim security throughout the countryside. This kind of
nation-building cannot be accomplished with the wave of a wand by
some fairy godmother, even one with the full might and power of the
world's last remaining superpower behind her.
To follow through on the proposal outlined by
the President would require the commitment of a large number of U.S.
forces - forces that cannot be used for other missions, such as
homeland defense - for an extended period of time. It will
take time to confirm that Iraq's programs to develop weapons of mass
destruction are well and truly destroyed. It will take time to
root out all elements of Saddam Hussein's government, military, and
security forces and to build new government and security
elements. It will take time to establish a new and legitimate
government and to conduct free and fair elections. It will
cost billions of dollars to do this as well. And the forces to
carry out this mission and to pay for this mission will come from
the United States. There can be little question of that.
If the rest of the world doesn't want to come with us at the outset,
it seems highly unlikely that they would line up for the follow
through, even though their own security might be improved by the
elimination of a rogue nation's weapons of mass destruction.
So, if the Congress authorizes such a mission, we must be prepared
for what will follow.
The Congressional Budget Office has already made
some estimations regarding the cost of a possible war with
Iraq. In a September 30 report, CBO estimates that the
incremental costs – the costs that would be incurred above those
budgeted for routine operations – would be between $9 billion to $13
billion a month, depending on the actual force size deployed.
Prosecuting a war would cost between $6 billion and $9 billion a
month. Since the length of the war cannot be predicted, CBO
could give no total battle estimate. After hostilities end,
the cost to return U.S. forces to their home bases would range
between $5 billion and $7 billion, according to CBO. And the
incremental cost of an occupation following combat operations varies
from about $1 billion to $4 billion a month. This estimate
does not include any cost of rebuilding or humanitarian
assistance. That is a steep price to pay in dollars, but
dollars are only a part of the equation.
There are many formulas to calculate cost in the
form of dollars, but it is much more difficult to calculate cost in
the form of deaths. Iraq may be a weaker nation militarily
than it was during the Persian Gulf war, but its leader is no less
determined and his weapons are no less lethal. During the
Persian Gulf War, the United States was able to convince Saddam
Hussein that the use of weapons of mass destruction would result in
his being toppled from power. This time around, the object of
an invasion of Iraq is to topple Saddam Hussein, so he has no reason
to exercise restraint.
The questions surrounding the wisdom of
declaring war on Iraq are many and serious. The answers are
too few and too glib. This is no way to embark on war.
The Senate must address these questions before acting on this kind
of sweeping use of force resolution. We don't need more
rhetoric. We don't need more campaign slogans or fund raising
letters. We need – the American people need – information
and informed debate.
Before we rush into war, we should focus on
those things that pose the most direct threat to us - those
facilities and weapons that form the body of Iraq's weapons of mass
destruction program. The United Nations is the proper forum to
deal with the inspection of these facilities, and the destruction of
any weapons discovered. If United Nations inspectors can enter the
country, inspect those facilities and mark for destruction the ones
that truly belong to a weapons program, then Iraq can be declawed
without unnecessary risk or loss of life. That would be the
best answer for Iraq, for the United States, and for the
world. But if Iraq again chooses to interfere with such an
ongoing and admittedly intrusive inspection regime, then and only
then should the United States, with the support of the world, take
stronger measures.
This is what Congress did in 1991, before the
Persian Gulf War. The United States at that time gave the
United Nations the lead in demanding that Iraq withdraw from Kuwait.
The U.S. took the time to build a coalition of partners. When
Iraq failed to heed the UN, then and only then did Congress
authorize the use of force. That is the order in which the steps to
war should be taken.
Everyone wants to protect our nation and our
people. To do that in the most effective way possible, we
should avail ourselves of every opportunity to minimize the number
of troops we put at risk. Seeking once again to allow the
United Nations inspection regime to peacefully seek and destroy the
facilities and equipment employed in the Iraqi weapons of mass
destruction program would be the least costly and most effective way
of reducing the risk to our nation, provided that it is backed up by
a credible threat of force if Iraq once again attempts to thwart the
inspections. We can take a measured, stepped approach that
would still leave open the possibility of a ground invasion if that
should become necessary, but there is no need to take that step
now.
I urge restraint. President Bush gave the United
Nations the opening to deal effectively with the threat posed by
Iraq. The UN embraced his exhortation and is working to
develop a new, tougher inspection regime with firm deadlines and
swift and sure accountability. Let us be convinced that a
reinvigorated inspection regime cannot work before we move to any
next step, and let us if we must employ force, employ the most
precise and limited use of force necessary to get the job
done.
Let us guard against the perils of haste, lest
the Senate fall prey to the dangers of taking action that is both
blind and improvident.
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