2002 Ron Paul 96:1
Madam Speaker, I rise in opposition
to this resolution. The wisdom of the war is one issue, but the process and the
philosophy behind our foreign policy are important issues as well. But
I have come to the conclusion that I see no threat to our national security.
There is no convincing evidence that Iraq is capable of threatening the security
of this country, and, therefore, very little reason, if any, to pursue a war.
2002 Ron Paul 96:2
But I am very interested also in the
process that we are pursuing. This is not a resolution to declare war. We know
that. This is a resolution that does something much different. This
resolution transfers the responsibility, the authority, and the power of the
Congress to the President so he can declare war when and if he wants to. He has not
even indicated that he wants to go to war or has to go to war; but he will
make the full decision, not the Congress, not the people through the Congress of
this country in that manner.
2002 Ron Paul 96:3
It does something else, though.
One-half of the resolution delivers this power to the President, but it also instructs
him to enforce U.N. resolutions. I happen to think I would rather listen to
the President when he talks about unilateralism and national security
interests, than accept this responsibility to follow all of the rules and the
dictates of the United Nations. That is what this resolution does. It instructs him
to follow all of the resolutions.
2002 Ron Paul 96:4
But an important aspect of the
philosophy and the policy we are endorsing here is the preemption doctrine. This
should not be passed off lightly. It has been done to some degree in the past, but
never been put into law that we will preemptively strike another nation that has
not attacked us. No matter what the arguments may be, this policy is new;
and it will have ramifications for our future, and it will have ramifications
for the future of the world because other countries will adopt this same
philosophy.
2002 Ron Paul 96:5
I also want to mention very briefly
something that has essentially never been brought up. For more than a thousand
years there has been a doctrine and Christian definition of what a just war is all
about. I think this effort and this plan to go to war comes up short of that
doctrine. First, it says that there has to be an act of aggression; and there has
not been an act of aggression against the United States. We are 6,000 miles from
their shores.
2002 Ron Paul 96:6
Also, it says that all efforts at
negotiations must be exhausted. I do not believe that is the case. It seems to me
like the opposition, the enemy, right now is begging for more negotiations.
2002 Ron Paul 96:7
Also, the Christian doctrine says
that the proper authority must be responsible for initiating the war. I do not
believe that proper authority can be transferred to the President nor to the
United Nations.
2002 Ron Paul 96:8
But a very practical reason why I
have a great deal of reservations has to do with the issue of no-win wars that we
have been involved in for so long. Once we give up our responsibilities from here
in the House and the Senate to make these decisions, it seems that we depend
on the United Nations for our instructions; and that is why, as a Member
earlier indicated, essentially we are already at war. That is correct. We are
still in the Persian Gulf War. We have been bombing for 12 years, and the reason
President Bush, Sr., did not go all the way? He said the U.N. did not
give him permission to.
2002 Ron Paul 96:9
My argument is when we go to war
through the back door, we are more likely to have the wars last longer and not have
resolution of the wars, such as we had in Korea and Vietnam. We ought
to consider this very seriously.
2002 Ron Paul 96:10
Also it is said we are wrong about
the act of aggression, there has been an act of aggression against us because
Saddam Hussein has shot at our airplanes. The fact that he has missed every
single airplane for 12 years, and tens of thousands of sorties have been
flown, indicates the strength of our enemy, an impoverished, Third World
nation that does not have an air force, anti-aircraft weapons, or a navy.
2002 Ron Paul 96:11
But the indication is because he shot
at us, therefore, it is an act of aggression. However, what is cited as the
reason for us flying over the no-fly zone comes from U.N. Resolution 688, which
instructs us and all the nations to contribute to humanitarian relief in the
Kurdish and the Shiite areas. It says nothing about no-fly zones, and it says
nothing about bombing missions over Iraq.
2002 Ron Paul 96:12
So to declare that we have been
attacked, I do not believe for a minute that this fulfills the requirement that we are
retaliating against aggression by this country. There is a need for us
to assume responsibility for the declaration of war, and also to prepare the
American people for the taxes that will be raised and the possibility of a
military draft which may well come.
2002 Ron Paul 96:13
I must oppose this resolution, which
regardless of what many have tried to claim will lead us into war with Iraq. This
resolution is not a declaration of war, however, and that is an
important point: this resolution transfers the Constitutionally-mandated Congressional
authority to declare wars to the executive branch. This resolution tells the
president that he alone has the authority to determine when, where, why, and how
war will be declared. It merely asks the president to pay us a courtesy call a
couple of days after the bombing starts to let us know what is going on. This is
exactly what our Founding Fathers cautioned against when crafting our form of
government: most had just left behind a monarchy where the power to
declare war rested in one individual. It is this they most wished to avoid.
2002 Ron Paul 96:14
As James Madison wrote in 1798, "The
Constitution supposes what the history of all governments demonstrates,
that the executive is the branch of power most interested in war, and most prone
to it. It has, accordingly, with studied care, vested the question of war in
the legislature."
2002 Ron Paul 96:15
Some- even some in this body- have
claimed that this Constitutional requirement is an anachronism, and that those who
insist on following the founding legal document of this country are just being
frivolous. I could not disagree more.
2002 Ron Paul 96:16
Mr. Speaker, for the more than one
dozen years I have spent as a federal legislator I have taken a particular interest
in foreign affairs and especially the politics of the Middle East. From my seat on
the international relations committee I have had the opportunity to review
dozens of documents and to sit through numerous hearings and mark-up sessions
regarding the issues of both Iraq and international terrorism.
2002 Ron Paul 96:17
Back in 1997 and 1998 I publicly
spoke out against the actions of the Clinton Administration, which I believed was
moving us once again toward war with Iraq. I believe the genesis of our
current policy was unfortunately being set at that time. Indeed, many of the same
voices who then demanded that the Clinton Administration attack Iraq are now
demanding that the Bush Administration attack Iraq. It is unfortunate that these
individuals are using the tragedy of September 11, 2001 as cover to force their
long-standing desire to see an American invasion of Iraq. Despite all
of the information to which I have access, I remain very skeptical that the
nation of Iraq poses a serious and immanent terrorist threat to the United
States. If I were convinced of such a threat I would support going to war, as I did
when I supported President Bush by voting to give him both the authority and
the necessary funding to fight the war on terror.
2002 Ron Paul 96:18
Mr. Speaker, consider some of the
following claims presented by supporters of this resolution, and contrast them
with the following facts:
2002 Ron Paul 96:19
Claim: Iraq has consistently demonstrated its
willingness to use force against the US through its firing on our
planes patrolling the UN-established "no-fly zones."
2002 Ron Paul 96:20
Reality: The "no-fly zones" were never
authorized by the United Nations, nor was their 12 year patrol by
American and British fighter planes sanctioned by the United Nations. Under UN
Security Council Resolution 688 (April, 1991), Iraq’s repression of the Kurds
and Shi’ites was condemned, but there was no authorization for "no-fly zones," much
less airstrikes. The resolution only calls for member states to
"contribute to humanitarian relief" in the Kurd and Shi’ite areas. Yet the US and
British have been bombing Iraq in the "no-fly zones" for 12 years.
While one can only condemn any country firing on our pilots, isn’t the
real argument whether we should continue to bomb Iraq relentlessly? Just
since 1998, some 40,000 sorties have been flown over Iraq.
2002 Ron Paul 96:22
Reality: According to the latest
edition of the State Department’s Patterns of Global Terrorism, Iraq sponsors several
minor Palestinian groups, the Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MEK), and the Kurdistan
Workers’ Party (PKK). None of these carries out attacks against the United
States. As a matter of fact, the MEK (an Iranian organization located in Iraq) has
enjoyed broad Congressional support over the years. According to last year’s
Patterns of Global Terrorism, Iraq has not been involved in terrorist activity
against the West since 1993 – the alleged attempt against former President Bush.
2002 Ron Paul 96:23
Claim: Iraq tried to assassinate President Bush in 1993.
2002 Ron Paul 96:24
Reality: It is far from certain that
Iraq was behind the attack. News reports at the time were skeptical about
Kuwaiti assertions that the attack was planned by Iraq against former.
President Bush. Following is an interesting quote from Seymore Hersh’s article from
Nov. 1993:
2002 Ron Paul 96:25
Three years ago,
during Iraqs six-month occupation of Kuwait, there had been an outcry
when a teen-age Kuwaiti girl testified eloquently and effectively
before Congress about Iraqi atrocities involving newborn infants. The
girl turned out to be the daughter of the Kuwaiti Ambassador to
Washington, Sheikh Saud Nasir al-Sabah, and her account of Iraqi
soldiers flinging babies out of incubators was challenged as
exaggerated both by journalists and by human-rights groups. (Sheikh
Saud was subsequently named Minister of Information in Kuwait, and he
was the government official in charge of briefing the international
press on the alleged assassination attempt against George Bush.) In
a second incident, in August of 1991, Kuwait provoked a special session
of the United Nations Security Council by claiming that twelve Iraqi
vessels, including a speedboat, had been involved in an attempt to
assault Bubiyan Island, long-disputed territory that was then under
Kuwaiti control. The Security Council eventually concluded that, while
the Iraqis had been provocative, there had been no Iraqi military raid,
and that the Kuwaiti government knew there hadnt. What did take place
was nothing more than a smuggler-versus-smuggler dispute over war booty
in a nearby demilitarized zone that had emerged, after the Gulf War, as
an illegal marketplace for alcohol, ammunition, and livestock.
2002 Ron Paul 96:26
This establishes that on several
occasions Kuwait has lied about the threat from Iraq. Hersh goes on to
point out in the article numerous other times the Kuwaitis lied to the
US and the UN about Iraq. Here is another good quote from Hersh:
2002 Ron Paul 96:27
The President was not alone in
his caution. Janet Reno, the Attorney General, also had her doubts.
"The A.G. remains skeptical of certain aspects of the case," a senior
Justice Department official told me in late July, a month after the
bombs were dropped on Baghdad…Two weeks later, what amounted to open
warfare broke out among various factions in the government on the issue
of who had done what in Kuwait. Someone gave a Boston Globe reporter
access to a classified C.I.A. study that was highly skeptical of the
Kuwaiti claims of an Iraqi assassination attempt. The study,
prepared by the C.I.A.s Counter Terrorism Center, suggested that
Kuwait might have "cooked the books" on the alleged plot in an effort
to play up the "continuing Iraqi threat" to Western interests in the
Persian Gulf. Neither the Times nor the Post made any significant
mention of the Globe dispatch, which had been written by a Washington
correspondent named Paul Quinn-Judge, although the story cited specific
paragraphs from the C.I.A. assessment. The two major American
newspapers had been driven by their sources to the other side of the
debate.
2002 Ron Paul 96:28
At the very least, the case against
Iraq for the alleged bomb threat is not conclusive.
2002 Ron Paul 96:29
Claim: Saddam Hussein will use
weapons of mass destruction against us – he has already used them against his own
people (the Kurds in 1988 in the village of Halabja).
2002 Ron Paul 96:30
Reality: It is far from certain that
Iraq used chemical weapons against the Kurds. It may be accepted as conventional
wisdom in these times, but back when it was first claimed there was great
skepticism. The evidence is far from conclusive. A 1990 study by the Strategic Studies
Institute of the U.S. Army War College cast great doubts on the claim that Iraq
used chemical weapons on the Kurds. Following are the two gassing incidents
as described in the report:
2002 Ron Paul 96:31
In September 1988, however – a
month after the war (between Iran and Iraq) had ended – the State
Department abruptly, and in what many viewed as a sensational manner,
condemned Iraq for allegedly using chemicals against its Kurdish
population. The incident cannot be understood without some background
of Iraq’s relations with the Kurds…throughout the war Iraq effectively
faced two enemies – Iran and elements of its own Kurdish minority.
Significant numbers of the Kurds had launched a revolt against Baghdad
and in the process teamed up with Tehran. As soon as the war with Iran
ended, Iraq announced its determination to crush the Kurdish
insurrection. It sent Republican Guards to the Kurdish area, and in the
course of the operation – according to the U.S. State Department – gas
was used, with the result that numerous Kurdish civilians were killed.
The Iraqi government denied that any such gassing had occurred.
Nonetheless, Secretary of State Schultz stood by U.S. accusations, and
the U.S. Congress, acting on its own, sought to impose economic
sanctions on Baghdad as a violator of the Kurds’ human rights.
2002 Ron Paul 96:32 Having looked at all the
evidence that was available to us, we find it impossible to confirm the
State Department’s claim that gas was used in this instance.
To begin with. There were never any
victims produced. International relief organizations who examined
the Kurds – in Turkey where they had gone for asylum – failed to
discover any. Nor were there ever any found inside Iraq. The claim
rests solely on testimony of the Kurds who had crossed the border into
Turkey, where they were interviewed by staffers of the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee…
2002 Ron Paul 96:33
It appears that in seeking to
punish Iraq, the Congress was influenced by another incident that
occurred five months earlier in another Iraqi-Kurdish city, Halabjah.
In March 1988, the Kurds at Halabjah were bombarded with chemical
weapons, producing many deaths. Photographs of the Kurdish victims were
widely disseminated in the international media. Iraq was blamed for the
Halabjah attack, even though it was subsequently brought out that Iran
too had used chemicals in this operation and it seemed likely that
it was the Iranian bombardment that had actually killed the
Kurds.
2002 Ron Paul 96:34
Thus, in our view, the Congress
acted more on the basis of emotionalism than factual information,
and without sufficient thought for the adverse diplomatic effects of
its action.
2002 Ron Paul 96:35
Claim: Iraq must be attacked because
it has ignored UN Security Council resolutions – these resolutions must be
backed up by the use of force.
2002 Ron Paul 96:36
Reality: Iraq is but one of the many
countries that have not complied with UN Security Council resolutions. In
addition to the dozen or so resolutions currently being violated by Iraq, a
conservative estimate reveals that there are an additional 91Security Council
resolutions by countries other than Iraq that are also currently being violated.
Adding in older resolutions that were violated would mean easily more than 200 UN
Security Council resolutions have been violated with total impunity. Countries
currently in violation include: Israel, Turkey, Morocco, Croatia, Armenia,
Russia, Sudan, Turkey-controlled Cyprus, India, Pakistan, Indonesia. None of these
countries have been threatened with force over their violations.
2002 Ron Paul 96:37
Claim: Iraq has anthrax and other
chemical and biological agents.
2002 Ron Paul 96:38
Reality: That may be true. However,
according to UNSCOM’s chief weapons inspector 90-95 percent of Iraq’s chemical and
biological weapons and capabilities were destroyed by 1998; those that
remained have likely degraded in the intervening four years and are likely
useless. A 1994 Senate Banking Committee hearing revealed some 74 shipments of
deadly chemical and biological agents from the U.S. to Iraq in the 1980s. As
one recent press report stated:
2002 Ron Paul 96:39
One 1986 shipment from the
Virginia-based American Type Culture Collection included three strains
of anthrax, six strains of the bacteria that make botulinum toxin and
three strains of the bacteria that cause gas gangrene. Iraq later
admitted to the United Nations that it had made weapons out of all three…
2002 Ron Paul 96:40
The CDC, meanwhile, sent
shipments of germs to the Iraqi Atomic Energy Commission and other
agencies involved in Iraqs weapons of mass destruction programs. It
sent samples in 1986 of botulinum toxin and botulinum toxoid — used to
make vaccines against botulinum toxin — directly to the Iraqi
chemical and biological weapons complex at al-Muthanna, the records
show.
2002 Ron Paul 96:41
These were sent while the United
States was supporting Iraq covertly in its war against Iran. U.S. assistance to
Iraq in that war also included covertly-delivered intelligence on Iranian troop
movements and other assistance. This is just another example of our
policy of interventionism in affairs that do not concern us – and how this
interventionism nearly always ends up causing harm to the United States.
2002 Ron Paul 96:42
Claim: The president claimed last
night that: "Iraq possesses ballistic missiles with a likely range of hundreds of
miles; far enough to strike Saudi Arabia, Israel, Turkey and other
nations in a region where more than 135,000 American civilians and service members
live and work."
2002 Ron Paul 96:43
Reality: Then why is only Israel
talking about the need for the U.S. to attack Iraq? None of the other countries seem
concerned at all. Also, the fact that some 135,000 Americans in the area are
under threat from these alleged missiles is just makes the point that it is time to
bring our troops home to defend our own country.
2002 Ron Paul 96:45
Reality: The administration has
claimed that some Al-Qaeda elements have been present in Northern Iraq. This is
territory controlled by the Kurds – who are our allies – and is patrolled by U.S.
and British fighter aircraft. Moreover, dozens of countries – including
Iran and the United States – are said to have al-Qaeda members on their
territory. Other terrorists allegedly harbored by Iraq, all are affiliated with
Palestinian causes and do not attack the United States.
2002 Ron Paul 96:46
Claim: President Bush said in his
speech on 7 October 2002: " Many people have asked how close Saddam Hussein is to
developing a nuclear weapon. Well, we dont know exactly, and
thats the problem…"
2002 Ron Paul 96:47
Reality: An admission of a lack
of information is justification for an attack?
This chapter appeared in Ron Pauls Congressional website at http://www.house.gov/paul/congrec/congrec2002/cr100802.htm