Complete Text of Resolution

FLOOR STATEMENT OF SENATOR EDWARD M. KENNEDY ON
THE IRAQ RESOLUTION

Last October 16 President Bush signed Public Law 107-243, which
authorized the President to use military force, if necessary, to defend
our country. 

I voted against that resolution and war with Iraq because I was
not persuaded that Iraq posed an imminent threat to our national
security, and because of my belief that war with Iraq, especially
without broad international support, would undermine our ability to meet
the gravest threat to our national security - terrorism against the
United States by Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups.

Circumstances have changed significantly since Congress approved
that resolution last October.  In the months that have passed, events
have only strengthened my belief that this is the wrong war at the wrong
time.

In those three months, Al Qaeda has escalated its campaign of
terror.  North Korea has revived its nuclear weapons program.  And
United Nations inspectors are now on the ground in Iraq. 

There is no doubt that Saddam Hussein is a brutal dictator.  He
invaded Kuwait.  He oppresses the Iraqi people.  He murders his
opponents.  He has gassed his own people.  He has defied the world
community.

So I commend President Bush for going to the United Nations and
for working with our allies to put inspectors on the ground again in
Iraq.  The inspectors are making progress.  Rather than commit American
troops to war with Iraq at this time, we should give the inspectors our
full support and assistance - including our best intelligence
information - to strengthen their disarmament efforts.

There are many other questions that must be answered before we
go to war.

Will war increase the chances of injury and harm to American
citizens if Saddam Hussein, with his back pressed against the wall,
decides to use chemical or biological weapons?

What will a post-war Iraq look like?  Who will govern?  How long
will our troops need to stay?

What will the impact be on the war against terrorism?  Will we
be increasing support for Al Qaeda?

What will be the impact of our allies in the region?  Will
stability be undermined? 

How will our nation be able to manage three foreign policy
crises at the same time - the war against terrorism, and the crisis with
North Korea, and now a war with Iraq?

When Congress voted on this issue in October, the President had
not yet decided to go to war.   The President said war was the last
resort.  He said we would work with the international community to
obtain Iraq's disarmament. Clearly, we have not reached that last
resort.  Inspectors are on the ground in Iraq, and the international
community wants the inspections to continue, yet the President is poised
to pull the trigger on war. 

I am delighted to work with Senator Byrd on this issue, and I am
a cosponsor of his resolution.  We share the goal of ensuring that war
will be the last resort, that if we do have to go to war in Iraq, it
will be with the support of Congress, the American people and the
international community. 

And in light of the changed circumstances since the previous
votes by Congress, I am introduction another resolution supporting the
inspections process and requiring the President to obtain approval from
Congress before committing American troops to war.  This decision may
well be one of the most important that any of us will make. 

So much has happened since Congress voted to authorize force
last October.  On November 8, the United Nations Security Council
unanimously approved a resolution that demanded unprecedented access to
suspected weapons sites in Iraq.  The passage of this resolution
demonstrated the resolve of the international community to disarm
Saddam, and was soon followed by the arrival of several hundred weapons
inspectors in Iraq. 

On January 27, the inspectors submitted a report to the Security
Council about Iraq's cooperation with weapons inspections.  Chief
weapons inspector Hans Blix stated that Iraq has so far cooperated
"rather well" but that additional cooperation is necessary.  The
Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency said
inspectors "have found no evidence that Iraq has revived its nuclear
weapons program since the elimination of the program in the 1990s" and
that inspectors "should be able within the next few months to provide
credible assurances that Iraq has no nuclear weapons program."

The U.N. report demonstrated that the inspection process is
working.  The inspectors are building their case, and Saddam Hussein is
feeling the pressure of the international community. Nothing in the
report suggests that war now is the only option to disarm Saddam.
Clearly, the inspections should continue. 

It is wrong for the Administration to beat the drums of war.
There is time for thoughtful deliberation about whether war now is the
right priority for our nation and we in Congress have a responsibility
to the Constitution and the American people to act again on this
all-important issue of war or peace.

The Administration has totally failed to make the case that
Saddam Hussein is an imminent threat to our security. No evidence, no
proof, no "smoking gun," no intelligence has ever been released to
suggest we must launch a pre-emptive strike in order to defend America
from an unprovoked attack.  Instead of making its case, the
Administration simply says, "Trust us - we know more than you do."

Many experts believe that Iraq - especially without provocation
- does not represent an imminent threat to our security.  In fact, it
may well be just the opposite.  On October 7, CIA Director George Tenet
released an unclassified assessment in a letter to the Senate Select
Committee on Intelligence that suggested Iraq would only be a threat if
the United States attacked it first. 

The letter said, "the probability of [Saddam Hussein] initiating
an attack [on the United States] would be low."  It also said, "should
Saddam Hussein conclude that a U.S.-led attack could no longer be
deterred, he probably would become much less constrained in adopting
terrorist actions.  Such terrorism might involve...[chemical and
biological weapons]."

In spite of U.S. assertions that we have secret evidence of
Iraq's WMD program, we have been transferring this information at a
painfully slow pace. It is only this month, that we finally began to
hand over "significant intelligence."  The Administration promises the
release of new information and all of us hope that it will be more
convincing than what has been made available so far.

Secretary Powell will go to the Security Council to share
intelligence on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program on February
5.  But if the United States has significant intelligence, we should
share it with the U.N. inspectors today.  We should not wait a further
week.  If our goal is disarmament, we should do everything possible to
assist the inspectors.

The disarmament of Saddam Hussein is essential.  But the
Administration has not made a persuasive case that the threat from Iraq
is so immediate that it justifies resort to war now when the inspections
process is obviously making progress.  Clearly, we have not reached the
last resort. 

Our nation faces another threat that is much more immediate: the
possibility of new Al Qaeda terrorist attacks.  A unilateral invasion of
Iraq would not advance our war against terrorism - it would undermine
it.  Our highest national priority is to wage the unfinished war against
Al Qaeda effectively. 

In the last four months there have been deadly new Al Qaeda
attacks worldwide, which have slaughtered hundreds.  A French tanker was
attacked in Yemen, a nightclub bombed in Indonesia, a hotel destroyed in
Kenya, missionaries murdered in Yemen.  The frequency and ferocity of
these attacks is increasing.  It is only a matter of time before they
strike America again. 

The Administration would like us to believe that Saddam Hussein
is Public Enemy Number One, ignoring the fact that Osama bin-Laden is
still at large.  Chilling new evidence has arisen suggests that he is
planning new attacks. 

At home, we still remain vulnerable.  Last October, a Council of
Foreign Relations Task Force chaired by former Senators Gary Hart and
Warren Rudman warned that "America remains dangerously unprepared to
prevent and respond to a catastrophic attack on U.S. soil." 

Another Task Force representative told a Senate Judiciary
Subcommittee that "a war with Iraq... elevates the risk in the near term
of an attack on the United States...[and] will likely consume virtually
all the nation's attention and command the bulk of the available
resources, leaving little left over to address our many domestic
vulnerabilities."

For some time, the Administration engaged in a complicated spin
job to convince the American people that Saddam Hussein and Osama
bin-Laden are co-conspirators.  According to this view, waging war on
Iraq is part of the war against terrorism.  Last September, our
Secretary of Defense went so far as to claim publicly that he had
"bulletproof confirmation" of links between Iraq and Al Qaeda. 

But the Administration has never presented any of this
"bulletproof" evidence.  Most regional experts believe it is highly
unlikely that fundamentalist Al Qaeda leaders would ever find much
common cause with the secular dictator Saddam Hussein.  Last October,
CIA Director George Tenet even conceded that the Administration's
understanding of the al-Qaeda-Iraq link was "evolving" and based on
"sources of varying reliability."  The Administration claimed again this
week that they have new evidence of those ties, but so far we have only
seen a rehash of old allegations and unreliable anecdotes.

As the Administration emphasizes the threat from Iraq, it gives
less attention to other countries that pose an even more immediate
threat to our security. 

The greatest proliferation threat comes not from Iraq, but North
Korea. North Korea is much more likely and capable to develop, use and
sell these weapons. But unlike Iraq, North Korea probably already has
nuclear weapons.  Unlike Iraq, North Korea has no nuclear inspectors on
the ground to verify disarmament.

North Korea has a long and well-documented history of selling
its military technology, especially ballistic missiles, to whoever will
pay the highest price.  Desperate and strapped for cash, it is the
country most likely to sell or transfer weapons of mass destruction to
terrorists or nations that support terrorism.

In its single-minded focus on Iraq, Administration officials at
first refused to acknowledge that a nuclear crisis even existed.  Only
very recently has the Administration begun to devote the attention this
crisis deserves.

Nevertheless, the Administration continues to focus on Iraq.
They are now suggesting an easy war, with few casualties.  But our
military leaders, especially those with significant combat experience
are skeptical.  On December 18, a press report said that the commandant
of the Marine Corps is concerned that civilian leaders in the Pentagon
are underestimating the risks of war, and that military chiefs have
challenged the optimistic view that Saddam Hussein's government will
collapse soon after a military campaign begins. 

In December, we heard dire new forecasts about what war with
Iraq would actually be like.  U.S. intelligence officials warned that
Saddam Hussein may pursue a "scorched earth" policy if the war goes
badly.  They said that Hussein may try to destroy Iraq's oil fields,
power plants and food facilities. 

War will be a disaster not just for the soldiers who suffer and
die, but for the vast numbers of innocent civilians who will be
affected.  In December, the media reprinted a confidential U.N. planning
document predicting a humanitarian crisis in the wake of war with Iraq.
U.N. officials also predicted a halt to Iraqi oil production, serious
degradation of Iraqi transportation, sanitation and power facilities,
and the "outbreak of diseases in epidemic if not pandemic proportions."
The document also predicted a flow of up to 900,000 refugees.

War will not be as easy as the Administration would like us to
believe. It may well turn into the first great humanitarian catastrophe
of the twenty-first century. 

Beyond the human cost of war, the Administration has avoided
realistic discussion about the true economic effects of waging an
unnecessary war without broad international support. 

In December, Yale economist William Nordhaus, released a report
estimating total cost that could reach $1.9 trillion over a decade. He
warned of substantial hidden costs of war and reconstruction, and plus
the damage caused by economic ripples of war, such as higher oil prices,
lower productivity growth and possibly a recession. 

In October, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that it
would cost between $6 billion and $15 billion a month to fight a war in
Iraq, with occupation costs running from between $1 billion and $4
billion a month.  These numbers do not even include costs such as
construction of new military bases in Iraq, increase in active-duty
military strength, humanitarian assistance funds or aid provided to
allies to encourage them to support the war effort. 

If our national security is truly threatened by an imminent
threat, then we should spare no expense to defend America.  But when the
Administration proposes to wage unilateral preventive war, in the
absence of a clear danger, it is necessary to ask if this is the right
priority at the right time.

The Administration is also not adequately considering the
massive political commitment that will be required to Iraq's long-term
reconstruction. If we wage this war without allies, the United States
will assume a massive and lonely responsibility to rebuild Iraq,
preserve its territorial integrity and prevent chaos.  Going to war
alone will impose massive new responsibilities that could extend for
years, if not decades. 

The Senate debated giving the President authority to use force
against Iraq over three months ago.  Since then, circumstances have
changed so significantly that Congress must consider the issue of war
and peace again. 

Since our debate last fall, we have finally implemented, with
our allies, an active process to verify Iraq's disarmament.  That
process is working and should be allowed to continue.  We must help this
process along and give persuasive intelligence information to U.N.
weapons inspectors. 

It is possible that the inspections process will fail or that
new evidence will be uncovered about the threat from Saddam Hussein. But
under the current conditions, I continue to believe that this is the
wrong war at the wrong time. 

If we rush to pull the trigger against Iraq, we will invite
catastrophe and condemnation.  America, which has long been a beacon of
freedom for people around the world, will turn into a symbol of brute
force and aggression. The world may come to see us as a dangerous rogue
state, needing to be contained and deterred.  This is not the America
that Abraham Lincoln called "the last, best hope of mankind." War now
would be alien to our values, contrary to our interests, and must not be
waged. 

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