And as Congressman Wexler said, we need to think about the implications of voting against that. I would not choose this as the time to vote, but unfortunately we do not have that choice. It is important to me that any resolution I would choose to support is painfully clear that the goal here is disarmament. As the Carnegie people have said, ultimately regime change may be the means by which we have to achieve disarmament. But I think the goal here is disarmament. I think it is very important we continue to work through the U.N. in good faith. I do not think the Bush Administration has taken steps that represent the level of good faith I would have liked. I think it mostly has been a contradiction between different representatives. It depends upon whether the Secretary of State has been speaking or members of the Defense Department. One of our jobs is to try to arrive at a clear single voice on this issue. This resolution must be perfectly clear that we should exhaust every conceivable opportunity at the United Nations. We do not need to rush through that because I don't believe it is an imminent risk, and force should be the last resort. The last thing I want to say is to urge everybody on the Committee to take the time this evening to review the Lugar-HagelBiden proposal because I think there may be some things in there that we would like to add by way of amendment tomorrow in this Committee to match this resolution more closely to the best things, the most honorable and noble things the President has said as far as what our intentions ought to be as a country in building a coalition and, as was said earlier, using force only as a last resort. That is the kind of strength I want to be remembered for, as somebody who is so powerful they used their force only when they had to and the threat of that force helped us achieve peace. Those are my views today, and I look forward to working with you tomorrow in trying to craft a better resolution. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. KING. Gentleman from Colorado, Mr. Tancredo. Mr. TANCREDO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I don't know if there are many other issues that I have looked at for as long as I have looked at this one, studied as much as I have studied this one, and still feel as conflicted as I do about this one. I in a way envy those of my colleagues who are here and have spoken so adamantly and so passionately in support of one side of this debate or the other. They have, in fact, come to that-apparently they have come to that conclusion in their own mind that their position merits this very, very serious vote that they are going to take. I do not mind telling you I am still conflicted. On the one side of the ledger that we keep as we listen through all of this or as I did here, you have to deal with a number of realities, one being that this conflict will increase the threat that exists to the civil liberties in this Nation. It will undeniably move us in the direction to reduce the number of civil liberties that I believe all of us feel so strongly about. Certainly when we are in a fight for our lives, as we are told that this is and I do to a large extent believe that that is true, there will always be this balancing act we have to go through between what is an appropriate measure-what is the appropriate balance between individual liberty and collective security. This is a constant dilemma for us all certainly, not just on this issue but many. But certainly it highlights it when we come to this debate. There is no way of assuring that the outcome of regime change in Iraq will be definitive in the peace process. That we do not know, that there is no one that can say what will happen after Saddam Hussein is gone, what will happen in Iraq, what will happen to the countries surrounding it, what will happen in the Middle East. We do not know and there is no way of predicting it. We can all hope for the best, but it is no more than that. I worry about the establishment of a first strike precedent. This is an enormous change in our foreign policy and our policy as a Nation. It is unique. There are many ramifications to this, as has been already identified by a number of our colleagues here. This is scary stuff. I don't know that all the dots have been connected for me so that I can say that absolutely I am convinced that with Saddam Hussein, the dot is here, the line goes over here to al-Qaeda, over here to the rest of the fundamentalist Islam and the threat that it poses to the United States. I don't know that those dots have been connected. And I will tell you the other thing that has been incredibly disconcerting to me and that is this, that we are placed in a situation where the action that we may be about to take in Iraq will also ratchet up the incredible danger we are in in the United States. No one believes Saddam Hussein-no one believes that we will lose on the battlefield of Iraq. No one thinks so. We will win. We will certainly win on the battlefields of Iraq. The danger is not there so much, it is there certainly but there is even a greater danger here in the United States because of course our borders are porous, because the threat that will be posed to us by an increased activity level in the Middle East can hardly be ignored. How can anyone really believe does anyone really believe that there will not be an increased danger to the United States of people who are infiltrating into the country for the purposes of doing us great harm if we go to war in Iraq? Does anybody think that is not a legitimate concern? And yet I have not heard a single person mention that on their list of issues to be concerned about because our borders are still certainly porous. I will have an amendment that I will perhaps offer tomorrow to address this if it is allowed to be offered. Now, all this on the one side of the ledger is juxtaposed against this: Do you believe the President of the United States? Do you believe in the veracity of the United States? And, really, almost everything we have talked about here boils down to that. Do you believe that he would actually put the men and women of this country into harm's way for any reason other than, he feels in the bottom of his heart that it is absolutely necessary for the security of this Nation? There have been Presidents that I would challenge that, for whom the veracity test, I think, has failed. Mr. KING. The gentleman's time has expired. Mr. TANCREDO. Thirty seconds. Mr. KING. Without objection. Mr. TANCREDO. I will say that, in fact, I do believe that this President is truthful in his desire. I believe that what he says is true, that the dangers are great, and therefore it probably outweighs everything else. But I will tell you this, that my vote to go to war, the vote I will take as to whether or not to send somebody else's child to war, is whether or not I am willing to send mine. And that is a higher standard than I can possibly establish for anything else I do. And so that is why it is a tough, tough vote to take. Mr. KING. The gentleman from Massachusetts, Mr. Delahunt. Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Chairman, when this Nation was attacked last September 11th, the entire world responded with grief and sympathy and anger. I remember a headline in the French newspaper, Le Monde, the next morning which read that "Today, we are all Americans." From that sentiment came an international coalition to defeat terrorism. The cause was just and the evidence certainly was not in dispute. And progress has been made in the year since, yet the war against terrorism is certainly unfinished and the threat remains. Now the Administration is asking Congress to authorize another war against a foe whose capacity and inclination to threaten the United States remains a matter of guess and conjecture in a war whose links to the present one are tenuous at best; for the truth is, Saddam and al-Qaeda are natural enemies. One of the goals of the Islamist revolutionaries is the destruction of secular Muslim regimes such as Iraq, regimes which, according to their world view, have corrupted Islam and are responsible for its decline. Now, there is no question that Iraq's acquisition of weapons of mass destruction is a potential threat to peace and stability. But if that is our concern, why are we focused only on Iraq? The other two members of the "axis of evil" club, Iran and North Korea, possess equally deadly arsenals, and both are considerably further along than Iraq in the development of nuclear devices, as well as the capacity and technology to deliver them. According to our own intelligence, North Korea already has enough plutonium to construct one or more nuclear bombs. Now, make no mistake, Saddam Hussein has committed savage atrocities against his own people and ruthless aggression against his neighbors. But if we are to authorize a preemptive unilateral military strike, the evidence should be clear and convincing that Saddam poses such a tangible and imminent threat to our interests that we must act without delay, and that he is prepared to use them in the face of our overwhelming ability and superiority. For it is important to remember that Saddam Hussein possessed such weapons during the Gulf War, and when informed by Secretary of State Baker that their use could provoke a devastating American response, he chose not to use them. Indeed, it is possible that the only time Saddam Hussein will unleash his arsenal is when he himself is facing annihilation with nothing left to lose. America, on the other hand, has a great deal to lose. If our cause is just and the evidence is clear and compelling and there is no alternative, the American people will do what needs to be done. But before we risk the lives of our soldiers and countless innocent Iraqi civilians, before we divert hundreds of billions of dollars from our own pressing needs, before we risk the moral authority that historically has distinguished America among the family of nations, 82-194 D-2 we must take every reasonable step to resolve this crisis short of war. Now, President Bush took such a step before the U.N. General Assembly. His speech was a masterful indictment of Saddam Hussein for his acts of aggression and crimes against humanity. It is my view that while the President has failed to make a convincing case for a preemptive unilateral American military strike, he did make a powerful case for bringing Saddam before the international community to answer for his crimes. During our debate it is my hope to offer an amendment urging the Security Council to establish a war crimes tribunal against Hussein and other top Iraqi officials. A duly constituted tribunal would be firmly grounded in a core democratic value, the rule of law. It would isolate Saddam and rally other nations to our side like the Hague Tribunal that is now hearing evidence against Milosevic. It could pave the way for regime change without forcing us into a war. A war crimes tribunal would not only yield justice for Saddam's victims, but also yield a legal and moral rationale, based on evidence, for appropriate international response. And with that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back. Mr. KING. The gentleman from Texas, Dr. Paul. Mr. Chairman, I welcome the opportunity to speak out in opposition to this resolution. Let me very briefly state what the essence of the whole resolution says. And it is in section 3, and it is really-it is 10 pages long, but it is narrowed down to two sentences: We are giving the President the authority to defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq. In other words, we are transferring the power to declare war to the President. He can declare the war and fight the war when he pleases. And that is number one. Number two, equal to number one, enforce all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions. In this bill that we are working on, they mention United Nations 32 times-I am sorry, 25 times. They never mention article 1, section 8, once. I have three main concerns. One is, first, the merits of the war itself that has been addressed rather extensively so far. Two is, the constitutional process, which I think we have totally neglected. And three is also something else that we don't talk about much, but gets us to these places so often, and we wonder why we are here, and that is the philosophy of our foreign policy. Lately, in dealing with this resolution, we deal with the technical aspects of it. We have long forgotten about what the morally just war was all about, defined more than a thousand years ago. And I don't think this one meets up to this. It has been stated that we are starting something historically different, and I believe we are. We are institutionalizing the concept of preemptive war. We are embarking on something brand-new and different. It is not part of our traditions and it is not part of our Constitution. War, and a morally just war, should be defensive, after you have been attacked and aggression has been committed against us. Also, it should be of last resort. Negotiate, negotiate, negotiate. It should be the last resort. And also the legitimate authority has to be there to institutionalize the war, and I think we come up short with this. We do not have any evidence that aggression has been committed by Saddam Hussein against us, no matter how bad a guy he is. And there are a lot of bad guys around the world. There is no clearcut evidence that there is an imminent threat right now. Even Secretary Powell admits the military of Iraq is much weaker than it was 12 years ago. And so far there is nothing brand-new compared to 2 months ago, 2 years ago, or even 12 years ago that says that we must send our kids over there to fight this war. The constitutional process, I think, has been sadly neglected. It is very clear in the Constitution and it is very clear in our history about where this power to wage war and declare war resides. And it resides in the U.S. Congress. Now, the answer so often that I hear when I raise this is, but we have done it before. Of course, we have done it before. But does that make it right? Oh, we have the War Powers Resolution, and that permits war for 60 to 90 days. That is an illegal, unconstitutional transfer of power. If we want the President to make these decisions, the Constitution should be amended, and it hasn't been. And that is what we are doing with this resolution, we are circumventing the Constitution to allow the President to make a decision that falls on our shoulders that we are neglecting. And I think we should think about that seriously, because I think it fits into the philosophy of the last 50 or 60 years. The last half of the last century we did evolve our foreign policy to the point where now we have become the self-appointed world policeman. We have accepted not the foreign policy of the Founders and the foreign policy of the Constitution, where you have a strong national defense and you defend our country while being friends and trading, but we have involved ourselves in entangling alliances and involved ourselves in the internal affairs of so many nations. But now we have allowed this to happen to the point where we are responsible for everything and yet the Congress is responsible for nothing. Congress is there to rubber-stamp what is happening, and our-not only are we derelict in our duty in transferring this power to the President, both the executive branch and the legislative branch are derelict in allowing this power once again to be transferred to the United Nations. We should take this very seriously, because the policy of foreign intervention has a poor record. It hasn't worked very well. I believe because we have avoided the Constitution in the way we declare war, we have had so many failures, we don't win wars anymore. And we should be very cautious to follow the rule of law. Mr. KING. The time of the gentleman has expired. The gentleman from New York, Mr. Meeks, is recognized for 5 minutes. Mr. MEEKS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Members of the Committee, the resolution we are considering today is not only important to our national security, it has implications for how we as a Nation relate to the United Nations, and indeed the entire world, implications which can either change or reinforce many of the negative perceptions our allies and friends |