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04 March 2003

Kennedy Argues Against War with Iraq

(Says inspectors can still do job of disarming Saddam Hussein regime)
(3180)
Senator Edward Kennedy argued against war with Iraq at this time, in a
March 4 speech on U.S. foreign policy to the United Methodist Church
annual conference in Washington.
"War must always be a last resort," the Massachusetts Democrat said.
"All options must be pursued. Inspections still have a chance to work.
Progress is difficult. No one said it would be easy. But as long as
inspectors are on the ground and making progress, we must give peace a
chance, so that war with Iraq does not distract us from dealing as
effectively as possible with the obvious and ongoing threat of
terrorism by Al Qaeda and the crisis over North Korea's nuclear
weapons."
Kennedy, a persistent Senate critic of the administration's plans for
Iraq, said "such a war will make the world even more dangerous for
Americans -- not less dangerous," and alienate allies the United
States needs to fight terrorism.
Following is the text of Kennedy's remarks as prepared for delivery:
(begin text)
March 4, 2003
Address of Senator Edward M. Kennedy to the United Methodist Church
Legislative Conference
"Securing America and Disarming Saddam: Concerns about the President's
Rush to War in a Dangerous World"
Thank you, Mr. Winkler, for that generous introduction and for all the
excellent work of the General Board and the United Methodist Church
community over the years to support the cause of peace and justice in
America and in the world. It's an honor to be here with so many
friends and leaders from Massachusetts and around the nation.
Our nation was founded on the inalienable right of all our citizens to
life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. We share a strong
commitment to the belief that each of us can make a difference in
shaping the world we live in, and all of us must try.
These are very difficult days in our history. Few can deny that
President Bush deserves great credit for the way he rallied America
and the entire international community after the appalling terrorist
attacks of September 11th. Few can deny that he offered impressive
leadership during the war in Afghanistan and in the early months of
the ongoing battle against terrorism.
But few can also deny that after that, President Bush squandered too
much of the good will of the world community because of his
single-minded rush to war with Iraq -- even if he has few or even no
allies to go to war with him -- and even when there are other ways to
contain the threat posed by Saddam's Iraq.
All of us agree that Saddam is a despicable and deceitful dictator,
but we are deeply concerned that such a war will make the world even
more dangerous for Americans -- not less dangerous. Surely, we cannot
afford to shatter the very coalition we need in order to combat the
obviously greater and more imminent threat we face from Al Qaeda and
its terrorists -- the same coalition that led to the arrest this
weekend of the planner of the 9/11 attack on America.
And on top of these actions, the Bush Administration quietly and
stealthily changed a half century of American defense policy from one
that used our nuclear arsenal for defense to one in which nuclear
weapons may be used preemptively. These are major changes that affect
not just our own safety and security, but peace on our planet. After
the horror of 9/11, we owe it to all Americans to debate these immense
changes in the way we conduct ourselves in the world. And we owe it to
our troops, to the Iraqi people, and to humanity.
Surely, we can have effective relationships with other nations without
adopting a chip-on-the-shoulder, my-way-or-the-highway policy that
makes all our other goals in the world more difficult to achieve. We
cannot be a bully in the world school yard and expect cooperation,
friendship, and support from the rest of the world.
No war by America can be successfully waged if it lacks the strong
support of our people. The reason for that lack of support today is
clear. The Administration has not made a convincing case for war
against Iraq, or its costs, or its consequences.
In his address last week on a post-war Iraq, President Bush failed to
give adequate answers to the key questions on the minds of the
American people about the issues at stake in this war and its
aftermath. He painted a simplistic picture of the brightest possible
future -- with democracy flourishing in Iraq, peace emerging among all
nations in the Middle East, and the terrorists with no place of
support there. We've all heard of rosy scenarios, but that was
ridiculous.
War must always be a last resort. All options must be pursued.
Inspections still have a chance to work. Progress is difficult. No one
said it would be easy. But as long as inspectors are on the ground and
making progress, we must give peace a chance, so that war with Iraq
does not distract us from dealing as effectively as possible with the
obvious and ongoing threat of terrorism by Al Qaeda and the crisis
over North Korea's nuclear weapons.
War with Iraq runs the very serious risk of inflaming the Middle East
and provoking a massive new wave of anti-Americanism in other
countries that may well strengthen the terrorists, especially if the
Muslim world opposes us. What if Al Qaeda were to time the next
terrorist attack to the day we go to war?
A year ago, The Wall Street Journal quoted a dissident in Saudi Arabia
who has turned his focus from his own government to the U.S.
government. He said, "The main enemy of the Muslims and the Arabs is
America -- and we don't want it to impose things on us. We'd rather
tolerate dictatorship in our countries than import reforms from
America."
The burning of the U.S. flag has become a common ritual in Arab
capitals.
Calling someone "an American" is now regarded as an insult in parts of
the Arab world.
What a tragic change from the support we had in the world after 9/11,
let alone from the time when America stood as a beacon of hope and a
model for freedom and democracy throughout the world.
There is also much more that we need to do at every level of
government to strengthen our defenses at home against terrorist
attacks, especially if we go to war alone against Iraq and inflame the
Arab world. America is already on constant alert. This is no time to
shortchange our security at home.
Yet across the country the Bush Administration is leaving local
governments high and dry in the face of continuing terrorist threats
at home. Despite promises of funding from Washington, our cities are
not receiving the urgent help they need.
If there is any lesson from September 11, it is that we cannot afford
to fail to meet this threat. The cost in lives at home is too great.
The war with Al Qaeda is far from over -- and war with Iraq may well
make it worse.
In a desperate effort to justify its focus on Iraq, the Administration
long asserted that there are ties between Osama and Saddam -- a theory
with no proof and widely doubted by intelligence experts.
Two weeks after 9/11, Secretary Rumsfeld claimed that we had
"bulletproof" evidence of the link. But a year later, CIA Director
Tenet conceded in a letter to the Senate Intelligence Committee that
the Administration's understanding of the link was still "evolving"
and was based on "sources of varying reliability."
In fact, the link is so widely doubted that intelligence experts have
expressed their concern that intelligence is being politicized to
support the rush to war.
The Bush Administration was wrong to allow the anti-Iraq zealots in
its ranks to exploit the 9/11 tragedy by using it to make war against
Iraq a higher priority than the war against terrorism.
Al Qaeda -- not Iraq -- is the most imminent threat to our national
security. Our citizens are asked to protect themselves from Osama with
plastic sheeting and duct tape, while the Administration prepares to
send our armed forces to war against Iraq. Those priorities are wrong.
And what about the aftermath of war? We know that a stable government
will be essential in a post-war Iraq. But the Administration refuses
to discuss in any real detail how it will be achieved and how long our
troops will need to stay. President Bush assumes everything will go
perfectly.
But war and its consequences hold enormous risks and uncertainties. As
retired General Anthony Zinni has asked, will we do what we did in
Afghanistan in the 1970s -- drive the old Soviet Union out and let
something arguably worse emerge in its place?
The Administration has also tried to convince us that the war will not
be costly to the Treasury. If our national security were at stake, we
would spare no expense to protect American lives. But the
Administration owes the nation a more honest discussion about the war
costs we are about to face, especially if America has to remain in
Iraq for many years, with little support from others.
The vast majority of the Iraqi people may well want the end of
Saddam's rule, but they may not welcome the United States to create a
government in our own image. Regardless of their own internal
disagreements, the Iraqi people still feel a strong sense of national
identity, and could quickly reject an American occupation force that
tramples on local cultures.
We must recognize that the day we occupy Iraq, we shoulder the
responsibility to protect and care for its citizens. We are
accountable under the Geneva Conventions for public safety in
neighborhoods, for schools, and for meeting the basic necessities of
life for 23 million Iraqi civilians.
This daunting challenge has received very little attention from the
Administration. As the dust settles, the repressed tribal and
religious differences of the past may come to the fore -- as they did
in the brutal civil wars in the former Yugoslavia, in Rwanda, and
other countries. As our troops bypass Basra and other Iraqi cities on
our way to Baghdad, how will we prevent the revenge bloodletting that
occurred after the last Gulf War, in which thousands of civilians lost
their lives? What do we do if Kurds in Northern Iraq proclaim an
independent Kurdistan? Or the Shia in Southern Iraq move toward an
alliance with Iran, from which they have long drawn their inspiration?
We have told the Government of Turkey that we will not support an
independent Kurdistan, despite the fact that the Kurdish people
already have a high degree of US-supported independence and have even
completed work on their own constitution. Do we send in troops again
to keep Iraq united?
This Administration's record in post-war Afghanistan is not exactly
the best precedent for building democracy in Iraq.
Sixteen months after the fall of the Taliban government in
Afghanistan, President Hamid Karzai is still referred to as "the Mayor
of Kabul" -- because of the weak and fragile hold of his government on
the rest of the nation. Warlords are in control of much of the
countryside. The Afghan-Pakistani border is an area of anarchy -- and
ominous Al Qaeda cells.
If we haven't been able to get it right in Afghanistan, where we went
in with strong international support and involvement, how do we expect
to go-it-alone in Iraq? Everyone talked about a Marshall Plan for
Afghanistan where there is a clear need to rebuild and get it right,
so that the Taliban and Al Qaeda can't take over again. President
Karzai was here last week at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee,
begging for the adequate support and resources that his new government
needs to take hold. To get it right in Iraq, we need the international
community and a long-term commitment on the part of the United States.
That is less likely to happen if we don't have the international
community with us from the start.
Depending on our welcome, it could take as many as 200,000 of our
troops, or even more, to stabilize Iraq. We already have 37,000 troops
in South Korea, 8,000 in Afghanistan, 5,000 in the Balkans, and
another thousand in the Philippines and Colombia. We need to know
whether our armed forces are being spread too thin. We need to know
how long they can keep up this pace.
The large-scale mobilization of the National Guard and Reserves for
Iraq is already having an effect on police, firefighters, and others
that are needed on the front lines at home, especially if there are
new terrorist attacks on the United States. We have called up 167,000
guard and reserve personnel for active duty. We know the effect on
their families who are left behind. What is the effect on the economy
in lost productivity as these jobs go unfilled? Can we meet all of
these obligations now, let alone shoulder the long-term costs of war
with Iraq. That may well total hundreds of billions of dollars in the
years ahead.
One of the highest and worst costs of war may be the humanitarian
costs. Sixty percent of Iraqi's people rely on the United Nations'
Oil-for-Food Program for their daily survival. Food is distributed
through 46,000 government distributors supplied by a network of food
storage barns. A war with Iraq will disrupt this network. Many Iraqis,
especially low-income families, have no other source of food.
Women and children will be the most vulnerable victims of war.
According to recent reports, 500,000 Iraqi children already suffer
from malnutrition.
The U.S. military is far from equipped to handle the challenge of
filling these needs in a post-Saddam Iraq. Our government must have a
plan in place to care for the population. Yet, we have heard little
from the Administration on how they intend to meet this obligation.
Despite the immense need for help from relief organizations, we have
had too few discussions with key non-governmental agencies to provide
food, tents, medicines, and other supplies that will be needed. The
lack of preparedness has led relief experts to predict that war will
be a humanitarian catastrophe not only in Iraq, but in neighboring
countries as well.
Saddam's repression and the Gulf War a decade ago displaced 700,000
Iraqis internally. These civilians are still dependent today upon food
rations, and will face severe malnutrition and starvation when rations
are suspended during an attack. Hundreds of thousands of refugees --
even millions -- could be on the move, desperately trying to avoid the
fighting, unable to find water, food, or shelter.
Are all these possible consequences acceptable to the American people?
Are they manageable? Does the Administration really have a plan that
takes into consideration that we will reap -- in the international
community, among our allies, in the UN, in NATO, in the Arab street,
in the US economy, in American families -- what we sow in a war in
Iraq?
Finally, the President must explain why war with Iraq won't distract
us from the more immediate and graver danger posed by North Korea.
Something is gravely wrong at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue if we rush to
war with a country that poses no nuclear threat, but won't even talk
to one that brandishes its nuclear power right now. Any nuclear threat
from Iraq is at least five years into the future. But the threat from
North Korea exists now -- today. CIA Director George Tenet recently
informed the Senate Armed Services Committee North Korea's missiles
can now reach American soil with a nuclear warhead.
Experts -- including professionals within our own government -- have
been ringing alarm bells for months about North Korea's pursuit of
nuclear weapons. The views of the experts are brushed aside, despite
the continually growing list of dangerous behavior by that government.
This is a country that celebrated the inauguration day of South
Korea's new president by test firing a missile into the nearby sea.
Yet, North Korea didn't even rate a single reference in the
President's speech last week.
North Korea has long had advanced missiles which it sells to other
countries. It has restarted its plutonium -- producing reactor, kicked
out the international inspectors, pulled out of the Nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty, and threatened to break the Armistice
agreement that has brought 50 years of peace to the Korean peninsula.
Desperate and strapped for cash, North Korea is the greatest current
nuclear danger to the United States, and it is clearly taking
advantage of the situation in Iraq. It is the country most likely to
sell nuclear material to terrorists, and has missiles that can strike
our soil. How long can the Administration continue to ignore North
Korea? How will a war with Iraq affect our ability to deal with this
escalating danger?
In his zeal on Iraq, the President has refused to call the situation
on the Korean peninsula what it is -- a genuine crisis. He has refused
to even talk directly to the North Koreans to try to end its nuclear
program.
The Administration may even have tried to conceal information about
North Korea. Intelligence analysts at the Lawrence Livermore National
Laboratory in California concluded in November 2001 that North Korea
had begun construction of a plant to enrich uranium to use in nuclear
weapons. Yet, the Administration did not reveal this information until
eleven months later, in October 2002 -- after Congress had voted on
the legislation authorizing the use of force in Iraq.
Only the Administration knows if the timing of the release of the
information on North Korea was by design or coincidence. But if the
Administration did conceal its knowledge of North Korea's dangerous
nuclear weapons program until after the Congressional vote on Iraq, it
would represent a breach of faith by our government not seen since the
Vietnam War.
The very real danger is that the Administration is making it more
likely that North Korea will provide nuclear material or even nuclear
weapons to terrorists or nations supporting terrorists. Is war with
Iraq worth that risk?
We are poised at a moment of truth in the stewardship of this
President. If President Bush commits our men and women to war, then
all of us will close ranks behind them, and pray for their safety and
a swift end to the conflict.
But with inspectors on the ground and stiff international pressure
still possible, this is an unnecessary war. History will judge how
well we meet the challenges of this new era and this new century. We
should move forward as the great and honorable nation we are -- with
patience and perseverance -- as we carry on the difficult work of
building a better and more peaceful world for all its people.
(end text)
(Distributed by the Office of International Information Programs, U.S.
Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)