US - Democrats concern over War w/ Iraq

Society Pakistan & World Affairs
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Just as I thought that the legislation on war w/ Iraq would pass without any real issues … A little harsh coming from Daschle, but none the less an interesting development.

If anyone has the text of Al Gore’s speech, please post it here. I heard it on C-Span; didn’t know he would come out so openly “concerned” about the war.

Daschle: Bush exploiting possible war

WASHINGTON (CNN) – In a stinging salvo delivered on the Senate floor, Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle lashed out at President Bush Wednesday, saying his administration was exploiting the possibility of war with Iraq for political gain and had impugned Senate Democrats in the process.

Daschle read through a litany of comments from administration and GOP figures about Iraq, including one from Bush who was quoted by The Washington Post Wednesday as saying the Democratic-controlled Senate was “not interested in the security of the American people.”

“Not interested in the security of the American people?” Daschle said. “You tell Sen. Inouye he’s not interested in the security of the American people. You tell those who fought in Vietnam and in World War II they’re not interested in the security of the American people. That is outrageous. Outrageous. The president ought to apologize.”

Daniel Inouye is a Democratic senator from Hawaii who lost his arm in World War II.

But Bush’s comments of late about Senate Democrats and national security have come in the context of the fight over legislation for the proposed Department of Homeland Security . The Bush comment about the Senate not being “interested” in national security came at a campaign event Monday in New Jersey when the president was talking about the legislation – not Iraq.

Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott, R-Mississippi, suggested that Daschle was overreacting.

“I think that Sen. Daschle needs to cool the rhetoric,” Lott told reporters. “We’ve got a lot of work to do, we need to do it in a bipartisan way. Accusations of that type are not helpful.”

Daschle, however, said in his floor speech that several Republican figures had made comments that have led him to conclude the administration was politicizing the Iraq debate. He cited a GOP pollster who said war as an issue could benefit Republicans in the upcoming midterm elections. He referenced Vice President Dick Cheney who spoke about Iraq while campaigning for a Republican candidate in Kansas Monday.

And he talked about White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card who has been quoted as saying “from a marketing point of view” it made sense to raise the issue of Iraq after Labor Day when lawmakers would be back from their August break.

“That is wrong,” Daschle said. “We ought not politicize this war. We ought not politicize the rhetoric about life and death.”

Daschle spoke as Bush met at the White House with Colombian President Alvaro Uribe.

Asked by reporters whether he was politicizing the war, Bush responded, “My job is to protect the American people,” Bush said. “And I will continue to do that regardless of the season.”

The political rhetoric heated up as lawmakers held several hearings Wednesday about Iraq.

At a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Samuel Berger, former national security adviser under President Clinton, urged the Bush administration to exhaust diplomatic efforts before taking any military action against Baghdad.

“Yes, there are a strong of broken resolutions,” Berger said, citing more than one dozen U.N. resolutions on disarmament Saddam Hussein has broken since the end of the Persian Gulf War. “But we are in an entirely new circumstance here – contemplating a military invasion of Iraq. And the world expects us to test the nonmilitary options before we move to the military one. We also owe that to the men and women who will be risking their lives if we decide to do so.”

Meanwhile, U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told reporters in Poland Wednesday that U.S. intelligence has determined there is a link between Iraq and the al Qaeda terrorist network, but he refused to elaborate. Rumsfeld was attending a NATO defense minister’s meeting in Warsaw.

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Text of Gore speech:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2002-09-23-gore-text_x.htm

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Ah who gives a damn. They gonna attack anyway, this crap is to get votes during the present elections.

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Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle slammed Bush today for “exploiting the possibility of war with Iraq for political gain.”

WASHINGTON (CNN) – Sharply stepping up the political rhetoric about Iraq, Democrats and Republicans traded shots Wednesday over whether the Bush administration was exploiting the possibility of war for political gain.

In a blistering salvo delivered on the Senate floor, Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle lashed out at Bush, saying the administration was doing just that and had impugned Senate Democrats in the process.

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The opposition to a war is growing, many International Statesmen have made it publicly known that they are against any military intervention without a UN mandate.

Asian and EU leaders warn US over Iraq

September 25 2002

Key Asian and European leaders yesterday warned the United States against a unilateral assault on Iraq, at the end of a three-day summit in Copenhagen clouded by the threat of war. The Asia Europe Meeting, or ASEM, was aimed at boosting trade and political ties between the two regions, but was overshadowed by regional issues including Iraq and North Korea which highlighted the regions’ differences with the US.

Chinese Prime Minister Zhu Rongji warned of “severe consequences” if military action was launched against Iraq without a UN mandate. “We request that Iraq comply with UN resolutions without any preconditions, and accept the UN weapons inspections,” he said, when asked about concern over unilateral US military action against Iraq. “We also ask that Iraq’s sovereignty and territorial integrity be respected. Without authority or mandate from the United Nations or without firm evidence, any actions will lead to severe consequences,” he told reporters.

The ASEM summit, a biennial gathering of leaders of the 15-member European Union with 10 Asian leaders, was dominated in general by the issue of the fight against terrorism since September 11 last year. The 25 leaders notably adopted a Joint Declaration on international terrorism, and agreed to hold an ASEM meeting on it in China next year …

The Europeans also stressed the importance of the UN over Iraq. “We emphasise the importance of sustaining the momentum of international co-operation against terrorism and the leading role of the UN,” said the anti-terrorism declaration. Since opening on Sunday night, the summit, held every two years since 1996, has raced through issues ranging from global trade liberalisation to the difference between culture and civilisation.

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Bush hasn’t made case for war on Iraq: US Democrat

http://www.abc.net.au/news/justin/nat/newsnat-28sep2002-19.htm

In the United States, Democrat Senator Ted Kennedy says war with Iraq should be the last resort and not the first response. Senator Ted Kennedy says the Bush administration has failed to make a persuasive case for going to war against Iraq. “I have heard no persuasive evidence that Saddam is on the threshold of acquiring the nuclear weapons he has sought for more than 20 years,” Senator Kennedy said.

The Bush administration this week alleged Iraq has links with the terrorist network Al Qaeda. But Senator Kennedy says it has presented no evidence to back this claim. “A case has not been made to connect Al Qaeda and Iraq,” he said.

Senator Kennedy emphasised the need for the US to have United Nations Security Council support. He says the priority should be to get weapons inspectors back into Iraq.

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**McDermott accuses Bush of plotting to be emperor **

By David Postman Seattle Times political reporter Monday, October 07, 2002

After holding a town-hall meeting on Beacon Hill, U.S. Rep. Jim McDermott arrives yesterday at Westlake Plaza with anti-war marchers protesting against President Bush’s request to Congress for permission to attack Iraq.

**U.S. Rep. Jim McDermott broadened his attack on George W. Bush’s war plans yesterday, saying the president is threatening military action in Iraq as part of a plot to crown himself emperor of America. **Criticized for saying on a trip to Iraq early last week that Bush would mislead the American public, McDermott, a Seattle Democrat, was back in his district yesterday telling cheering supporters that Bush is planning a war to distract voters’ attention from domestic problems.

**He said Bush is trying to “submarine” efforts to restart weapons inspections in Iraq to give him a pretext for starting a war — a war McDermott said is being planned in part to bolster U.S. oil interests. **
“And what we are dealing with right now in this country is whether we are having a kind of bloodless, silent coup or not,” McDermott said at a town-hall meeting at the Jefferson Park Community Center on Beacon Hill. The event was sponsored by local Democrats and other groups in his congressional district.

‘Like sheep’
At the heart of the debate, McDermott said, is whether Congress or the president has the power to declare war. **“This president is trying to bring to himself all the power to become an emperor — to create Empire America,” he said. ** And he warned his supporters, “If you go along like sheep that is what will happen.” State Republican Party Chairman Chris Vance said McDermott’s comments about a coup “were the most irresponsible thing I’ve ever heard an American politician say.”

“Sometimes politicians, like everyone else, will blurt out things they don’t mean,” Vance said. “But it sounds like he has thought about this carefully and really believes that.” The resolution Congress will vote on next week was negotiated between the White House and Congressional leaders of both parties. “The president is not trying to bypass Congress,” Vance said. “He’s taking his case to Congress.” “If President Bush is engaged in a coup then his co-conspirators are Richard Gephardt and Joseph Lieberman,” he said, referring to Democratic leaders.

About 200 people showed up for McDermott’s meeting in the Beacon Hill Community Center. Nearly all were supporters. Outside, four or five protesters carried signs objecting to McDermott’s recent trip to Iraq and his comments about Bush and Saddam Hussein. “Saddam Good — Bush Bad. This is Baghdad Jim’s Mind On Drugs,” said a sign carried by Brandon Swalley of Lakewood. “I think he should be thrown out,” she said.

When McDermott arrived, he was escorted into the hall by Seattle police and followed by a few protesters, one of whom shouted after him, “Our president is not a liar. If you want to say it, say it here but don’t go to foreign lands to say it.” Inside the crowd was heavily in favor of McDermott’s view. When opponents took a microphone to talk, they were shouted at and told to get to their question. Supporters, though, were able to talk uninterrupted and give anti-war speeches.

Pattern of deception
Late last week McDermott said that he may have overstated his case against Bush while in Iraq. But yesterday it was clear he believes there’s a pattern of deception within the Bush administration to justify a war. He said that Bush is using the memory of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks to fuel a war with Iraq.

“One of the dilemmas we’ve had since 9/11 is that this country has been continuously terrorized by the government,” McDermott said. "Every week they announce a new threat. ‘Today is a code orange.’ ‘Today is a code red.’ "Granted it was an awful day. It was a heinous act. Nobody has anything but horror over what happened that day. “But the message to draw from that day is not that we should suddenly go to war with the whole world, which is what the president is saying.”

**McDermott is convinced that Bush is bent on war with Iraq to distract voters’ attention from a collapsing stock market and other problems at home. “It is the oldest game in the book,” he said. “They found this war very convenient to obscure people’s views about what is happening domestically.” **

McDermott said he and two other Democratic members of Congress went to Iraq to see firsthand the effect of economic sanctions on the country, as well as to tell Iraqi leaders that if they didn’t agree to weapons inspections there would be a war. He said the demand for inspections was delivered to 15 or 20 government officials, but not to Saddam, who they did not ask to see. “We knew there was no point in getting into a situation where we’re shaking hands and smiling with somebody we don’t really think is doing the right thing by the country or the world, and we knew that message would get to him.”

Connecting the dots
McDermott’s comments went much further than his television interviews from Iraq, in which he said Bush would mislead Americans in order to build support for a war. When someone asked him if the war was meant to bolster U.S. oil interests, McDermott talked about what oil companies could gain from a war and said, "I’m not going to connect the dots exactly, but I think a dotted line certainly seems within the realm of possibility. …

“Oil is certainly a part of it but I don’t think it’s the underlying issue.” The underlying issue, he said repeatedly, is a fight over the Constitutional power to declare war. “People that I trust say if we don’t derail this coup that is going on, we are going to wind up with a government run by the president of the United States and all the rest of us will be standing around just watching it happen.”

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:hehe:

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Some interesting words from Bill Clinton when he was presenting his speech at the recent Labour conference in Blackpool:

The west has a lot to answer for in Iraq. Before the Gulf war, when Saddam Hussein gassed the Kurds and the Iranians, there was hardly a peep in the west because he was in Iran. Evidence has now come to light that in the early 1980s the United States may have even supplied him with the materials necessary to start the bio-weapons programme. And in the Gulf war the Shi’ites in the south-east of Iraq were urged to rise up and then were cruelly abandoned to their fate. We cannot walk away from them or the proved evidence that they are capable of self-government and entitled to a decent life.

This is a difficult issue. Military action should always be a last resort, for three reasons; because today Saddam Hussein has all the incentive in the world not to use or give these weapons away but with certain defeat he would have all the incentive to do just that; because a pre-emptive action today, however well justified, may come back with unwelcome consequences in the future; and because I have done this, I have ordered these kinds of actions. I do not care how precise your bombs and your weapons are, when you set them off, innocent people will die.

‘America can lead the world, but not dominate and run it’]('America can lead the world, but not dominate and run it' | Politics | The Guardian), The Guardian, 03 October 2002

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“And now, contrary to international law and against every decent instinct, we are engaging in what will come to be seen as a massacre in Iraq on the basis of the ‘Bush Doctrine’ of prevention, which allows the United States to attack any other country anytime we want and for whatever reason the president feels is justified”

Hinchey cheered for war stance](http://www.theithacajournal.com/news/stories/20030329/localnews/17137.html) The Ithaca Journal

By DAN HIGGINS 29 Mar 03

ITHACA – U.S. Rep. Maurice Hinchey, D-22, received a standing ovation from a largely anti-war crowd of about 300 people Friday night at the State Theatre. Hinchey was cheered as “courageous” for a letter he sent to supporters recently that decried the war in Iraq, and which said that history may come to view it as “a massacre.” “This is still a democracy,” Hinchey said. “We have a duty to speak out against this travesty on every possible occasion.”

The Kingston congressman spent the first part of his presentation pointing out that it was the U.S. government who armed Iraqi President Sadddam Hussein in the 1980s, and that by doing so, helped the dictator obtain chemical and biological weapons. “When Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney say Hussein has these weapons, they know what they’re talking about,” Hinchey said. In a letter to supporters, a version of which was published in Thursday’s Journal, Hinchey said, “And now, contrary to international law and against every decent instinct, we are engaging in what will come to be seen as a massacre in Iraq on the basis of the ‘Bush Doctrine’ of prevention, which allows the United States to attack any other country anytime we want and for whatever reason the president feels is justified.”

Some said that Hinchey went too far in using the word “massacre,” arguing that he was by extension accusing U.S. troops of war crimes. An editorial in Thursday’s New York Post questioned Hinchey’s fitness to hold public office. A Friday editorial in The Ithaca Journal said that Hinchey had insulted U.S. troops. Veterans in the audience Friday had a different view. Carman Hill witnessed the allied firebombing of Dresden, Germany from a prisoner of war camp. He said he understood the difference between Hinchey’s assailing President Bush’s foreign policy and support for the troops.

“The bombing of Dresden solidified the Germans, it made them more determined,” Hill said. “War is the wrong way to accomplish this,” Hill said of the Iraq conflict. Al Donahue, who identified himself as a Vietnam veteran, thanked Hinchey for his “principled stance” against the war. He said that if Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction are such a threat, then the U.S. would have more credibility in getting rid of its own. “Where is the Democratic Party in calling for abandoning all weapons of mass destruction?” he said.

Wally and Kathy Woods, of Ithaca, said they came to Friday’s talk to show that they support Hinchey’s antiwar stance. But their support of him is not blind, they said. “We criticized him when he voted for the Patriot Act,” Kathy Woods said. "We support him now because he is right. It is going to be a massacre.

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“Bush was wrong to go in the first place. To delay coming out is not going to make it right. We need to not get into another Vietnam,” Sharpton said.

Democrats blast Bush on Iraq policy](Democrats blast Bush on Iraq policy) The Age 27 Oct 03

All nine Democrats seeking their party’s presidential nomination traded barbs at the most recent political debate, but reserved their harshest words for incumbent Republican President George W Bush’s Iraq policy.

“This president has done it wrong every step of the way,” US Senator John Kerry said at the debate sponsored by Fox News and the Congressional Black Caucus Institute. “He promised that he would have a real coalition. He has a fraudulent coalition. He promised he would go through the United Nations and honour the inspections process. He did not.” “He promised he would go to war as a last resort … He did not,” the Massachusetts senator said.

“Our troops are today more exposed, are in greater danger, because this president didn’t put together a real coalition, because this president’s been unwilling to share the burden and the task,” Kerry added. The war in Iraq has proved to be one of the most frequently raised issues in the period presidential debates, providing fodder for attacks by the Democrats contenders against one another as well as against the current US administration. …

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Kennedy slams Bush over Iraq war again](http://washingtontimes.com/upi-breaking/20031016-115317-1341r.htm) The Washington Times 16 Oct 03

WASHINGTON, Oct. 16 (UPI) – Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., Thursday lambasted the administration, accusing President Bush of sending Americans to war for “trumped up reasons.” The Boston Globe obtained an advance copy Kennedy’s speech, in which he accused the administration of telling “lie after lie after lie.” “The trumped up reasons for going to war have collapsed,” Kennedy said in the speech, which reiterated his opposition to the president’s request for $87 billion to fund military operations and rebuilding in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“The administration still refuses to face the truth or tell the truth,” Kennedy says. "Instead the White House responds by covering up its failures and trying to sell its rosy version of events by repeating it with maximum frequency and volume, and minimum regard for realities on the ground."Kennedy’s last criticism of the war, where he described it in September as a fraud “made up in Texas” as part of political strategy, drew a scolding phone call from White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card.