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2A) Charles Krauthammer's American Unilateralism
Mr. KYL. Mr. President, In a December 2002 speech delivered by the commentator, Charles Krauthammer, at the Hillsdale College Churchill dinner entitled ``American Unilateralism,'' Mr. Krauthammer superbly articulates the necessity of American action to confront today's challenges in the international arena, most notably Iraq. He makes a compelling case against the two kinds of multilateralist thinking that are common today: that of the liberal internationalists and that of the pragmatic realists.

   Liberal internationalists, Krauthammer shows, cling to multilateralism as a shield for their real preference--in this case, inaction. He aptly points out that those most strenuously opposed to U.S. military action in Iraq are also the strongest supporters of requiring U.N. backing. The reason, Krauthammer concludes, is that ``they see the U.N. as a way to stop America in its tracks.'' The liberal internationalist fails to take into account that there is no logical, or moral, basis for depending upon the member of the U.N. Security Council to confer legitimacy on U.S. actions.

   Pragmatic realists, Krauthammer explains, understand the absurdity of the liberal internationalist's arguments, but believe that, nonetheless, the U.S. needs from a practical standpoint, international support to act. They believe that shared decisionmaking will result in good will, improved relations, and greater burdensharing. But, as Krauthammer demonstrates, our experiences in the gulf war prove otherwise.

   It is important to note that Krauthammer does not see unilateralism as a first choice. Rather, he advocates taking actions that are in the best interest of the United States, bringing others along if possible. What he wisely cautions against is allowing ourselves ``to be held hostage'' by the objections of countries that don't have America's interests at heart. He describes unilateralism as ``the high road to multilateralism.'' This may sound paradoxical, but it makes sense. It is American leadership, asserting a firm position and committing to take whatever actions are necessary to see if through, that enables a solid coalition to be built.

   Charles Krauthammer's remarks are both timely and insightful as the United States discusses Iraqi noncompliance with members of the U.N. Security Council and contemplates military action in Iraq. I highly recommend them to my colleagues in the Senate.

   I ask unanimous consent that Mr. Krauthammer's December 2002 speech be printed in the Record.

   There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:

   American Unilateralism

   American unilateralism has to do with the motives and the methods of American behavior in the world, but any discussion of it has to begin with a discussion of the structure of the international system. The reason that we talk about unilateralism today is that we live in a totally new world. We live in a unipolar world of a sort that has not existed in at least 1500 years.

   At the end of the Cold War, the conventional wisdom was that with the demise of the Soviet Empire, the bipolarity of the second half of the 20th century would yield to a multi-polar world. You might recall the school of thought led by historian Paul Kennedy, who said that America was already in decline, suffering from imperial overstretch. There was also the Asian enthusiasm, popularized by James Fallows and others, whose thinking was best captured by the late-1980s witticism: ``The United States and Russia decided to hold a Cold War: Who won? Japan.''

   Well they were wrong, and ironically no one has put it better than Paul Kennedy himself, in a classic recantation emphasizing America's power: ``Nothing has ever existed like this disparity of power, nothing. Charlemagne's empire was merely Western

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   We tend not to see or understand the historical uniqueness of this situation. Even at its height, Britain could always be seriously challenged by the next greatest powers. It had a smaller army than the land powers of Europe, and its navy was equaled by the next two navies combined. Today, the American military exceeds in spending the next twenty countries combined. Its Navy, Air Force and space power are unrivaled. Its dominance extends as well to every other aspect of international life--, not only military, but economic, technological, diplomatic, cultural, even linguistic, with a myriad of countries trying to fend off the inexorable march of MTV English.

   Ironically, September 11 accentuated and accelerated this unipolarity. It did so in three ways. The first and most obvious was the demonstration it brought forth of American power. In Kosovo, we had seen the first war ever fought and won exclusively from the air, which gave the world a hint of the recent quantum leap in American military power. But it took September 11 for the U.S. to unleash, with concentrated fury, a fuller display of its power in Afghanistan. Being a relatively pacific commercial republic, the U.S. does not go around looking for demonstration wars. This one being thrust upon it, it demonstrated that at a range of 7,000 miles, with but a handful of losses and a sum total of 426 men on the ground, it could destroy, within weeks, a hardened fanatical regime favored by geography and climate in a land-locked country that was already well known as the graveyard of empires. Without September 11, the giant would surely have slept longer. The world would have been aware of America's size and potential, but not its ferocity and full capacities.

   Secondly, September 11 demonstrated a new kind of American strength. The center of our economy was struck, aviation was shut down, the government was sent underground and the country was rendered paralyzed and fearful. Yet within days, the markets reopened, the economy began its recovery, the president mobilized the nation and a unified Congress immediately underwrote a huge worldwide war on terror. The Pentagon, with its demolished western fac 9ade still smoldering, began planning the war. The illusion of America's invulnerability was shattered, but with the demonstration of its recuperative powers, that sense of invulnerability assumed a new character. It was transmuted from impermeability to resilience--the product of unrivaled human, technological and political reserves.

   The third effect of September 11 was the realignment it caused among the great powers. In 1990, our principal ally was NATO. A decade later, the alliance had expanded to include some of the former Warsaw Pact countries. But several major powers remained uncommitted: Russia and China flirted with the idea of an anti-hegemonic alliance, as they called it. Some Russian leaders made ostentatious visits to little outposts of the ex-Soviet Empire like North Korea and Cuba. India and Pakistan sat on the sidelines.

   Then came September 11, and the bystanders lined up. Pakistan immediately made a strategic decision to join the American camp. India enlisted with equal alacrity. Russia's Putin, seeing a coincidence of interests with the U.S. in the war on terror and an opportunity to develop a close relation with the one remaining superpower, fell into line. Even China, while remaining more distant, saw a coincidence of interest with the U.S. in fighting Islamic radicalism, and so has cooperated in the war on terror and has not pressed competition with the U.S. in the Pacific.

   This realignment accentuated a remarkable historical anomaly. All of our historical experience with hegemony suggests that it creates a countervailing coalition of weaker powers. Think of Napoleonic France, or of Germany in the 20th century. Nature abhors a vacuum and history abhors hegemony. But in the first decade of post-Cold War unipolarity, not a single great power, arose to challenge America. On the contrary, they all aligned with the U.S. after September 11.

   So we bestride the world like a colossus. The question is, how do we act in this new world? What do we do with our position?

   Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld gave the classic formulation of unilateralism when he said, regarding Afghanistan--but it applies equally to the war on terror and to other conflicts--that ``the mission determines the coalition.'' This means that we take our friends where we find them, but only in order to help us accomplish our mission. The mission comes first and we define the mission.

   This is in contrast with what I believe is a classic case study in multilateralism: the American decision eleven years ago to conclude the Gulf War. As the Iraqi Army was fleeing the first Bush administration had to decide whether its goal in the war was the liberation of Kuwait or the liberation of Iraq. National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft, who was instrumental in making the decision to stop with Kuwait, has explained that going further would have fractured the coalition, gone against our promises to our allies, and violated the U.N. resolutions under which we had gone to war. ``Had we added occupation of Iraq and removal of Saddam Hussein to those objectives,'' he wrote, ``our Arab allies, refusing to countenance an invasion of an Arab colleague, would have deserted us.'' Therefore we did not act. The coalition defined the mission.

   LIBERAL INTERNATIONALISM

   There are two schools of committed multi-lateralists, and it is important to distinguish between them. There are the liberal internationalists who act from principle, and there are the realists who act from pragmatism. The first was seen in the run-up to the congressional debate on the war on Iraq. The main argument from opposition Democrats was that we should wait and hear what the U.N. was saying. Senator Kennedy, in a speech before the vote in Congress, said, ``I'm waiting for the final recommendation of the Security Council before I'm going to say how I'm going to vote.'' Senator Levin, who at the time was the Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, actually suggested giving authority to the President to act in Iraq only upon the approval of the U.N. Security Council.

   The liberal internationalist position is a principled position, but it makes no internal sense. It is based on a moral vision of the world, but it is impossible to understand the moral logic by which the approval of the Security Council confers moral legitimacy on this or any other enterprise. How does the blessing of the butchers of Tiananmen Square, who hold the Chinese seat on the Council, lend moral authority to anything, let alone the invasion of another country? On what basis is moral legitimacy lent by the support of the Kremlin, whose central interest in Iraq, as all of us knows, is oil and the $8 billion that Iraq owes Russia in debt? Or of the French, who did everything that they could to weaken the resolution, then came on board at the last minute because they saw that an Anglo-American train was possibly leaving for Baghdad, and they didn't want to be left at the station?

   My point is not to blame the French or the Russians or the Chinese for acting in their own national interest. That's what nations do. My point is to express wonder at Americans who find it unseemly to act in the name of our own national interest, and who cannot see the logical absurdity of granting moral legitimacy to American action only if it earns the prior approval of others which is granted or withheld on the most cynical grounds of self-interest.

   PRACTICAL MULTILATERALISM

   So much for the moral argument that underlies multilateralism. What are the practical arguments? There is a school of realists who agree that liberal internationalism is nonsense, but who argue plausibly that we need international or allied support, regardless. One of their arguments is that if a power consistency shares rule making with others, it is more likely to get aid and assistance from them.

   I have my doubts. The US. made an extraordinary effort during the Gulf War to get U.N. support, share decision-making and assemble a coalition. As I have pointed out, it even denied itself the fruits of victory in order to honor coalition goals. Did this diminish anti-Americanism in the region? Did it garner support for subsequent Iraq policy--policy dictated by the original acquiescence to that coalition? The attacks of September 11 were planned during the Clinton administration, an administration that made a fetish of consultation and did its utmost to subordinate American hegemony. Yet resentments were hardly assuaged, because extremist rage against the U.S. is engendered by the very structure of the international system, not by our management of it.

   Pragmatic realists value multilateralism in the interest of sharing burdens, on the theory that if you share decision-making, you enlist others in your own hegemonic enterprise. As proponents of this school and argued recently in Foreign Affairs, ``Straining relationships now will lead only to a more challenging policy environment later on.'' This is a pure cost-benefit analysis of multilateralism versus unilateralism.

   If the concern about unilateralism is that American assertiveness be judiciously rationed and that one needs to think long-term hardly anybody will disagree. One does not go it alone or dictate terms on every issue. There's no need to. On some issues, such as membership in the World Trade Organization, where the long-term benefit both to the U.S. and to the global interest is demonstrable, one willingly constricts sovereignty. Trade agreements are easy calls, however, free trade being perhaps the only mathematicaly provable political good. Other agreements require great skepticism. The Kyoto Protocol on climate change, for example, would have had a disastrous effect on the American economy, while doing nothing for the global environment. Increased emissions from China, India and other third-world countries which are exempt from its provisions clearly would have overwhelmed and made up for what-ever American cuts would have occurred. Kyoto was therefore rightly rejected by the Bush administration. It failed on its merits, but it was pushed very hard nonetheless, because the rest of the world supported it.

   The same case was made during the Clinton administration for chemical and biological weapons treaties, which they negotiated assiduously under the logic of, ``Sure, they're useless of worse, but why not give in, in order to build good will for future needs?'' The problem is that appeasing multilateralism does not assuage it; appeasement only legitimizes it. Repeated acquiescence on provisions that America deems injurious reinforces the notion that legitimacy

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   The key point I want to make about the new unilateralism is that we have to be guided by our own independent judgment, both about our own interests and about global interests. This is true especially on questions of national security, war making, and freedom of action in the deployment of power. America should neither defer nor contract out such decision-making, particularly when the concessions involve permanent structural constrictions, such as those imposed by the International Criminal Court. Should we exercise prudence? Yes. There is no need to act the superpower in East Timor or Bosnia, as there is in Afghanistan or in Iraq. There is no need to act the superpower on steel tariffs, as there is on missile defense

   The prudent exercise of power calls for occasional concessions on non-vital issues, if only to maintain some psychological goodwill. There's no need for gratuitous high-handedness or arrogance. We shouldn't, however, delude ourselves as to what psychological goodwill can buy. Countries will cooperate with us first our of their own self-interest, and second out of the need and desire to cultivate good relations with the world's unipolar power. Warm feelings are a distant third.

   After the attack on the USS Cole, Yemen did everything it could to stymie the American investigation. It lifted not a finger to suppress terrorism at home, and this was under an American administration that was obsessively multilateralist and accommodating. Yet today, under the most unilateralist American administration in memory, Yemen has decided to assist in the war on terrorism. This was not the result of a sudden attack of Yemeni goodwill, or of a quick re-reading of the Federalist Papers. It was a result of the war in Afghanistan, which concentrated the mind of recalcitrant states on the price of non-cooperation.

   Coalitions are not made by superpowers going begging hat in hand; they are made by asserting a position and inviting others to join. What even pragmatic realists fail to understand is that unilateralism is the high road to multilateralism. It was when the first President Bush said that the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait would not stand, and made it clear that he was prepared to act alone if necessary, that he created the Gulf War coalition.

   AMERICA'S SPECIAL ROLE

   Of course, unilateralism does not mean seeking to act alone. One acts in concert with others when possible. It simply means that one will not allow oneself to be held hostage to others. No one would reject Security Council support for war on Iraq or for any other action. The question is what to do if, at the end of the day, the Security Council or the international community refuses to back us? Do we allow ourselves to be dictated to on issues of vital national interest? The answer has to be ``no,'' not just because we are being willful, but because we have a special role, a special place in the world today, and therefore a special responsibility.

   Let me give you an interesting example of specialness that attaches to another nation. During the 1997 negotiations in Oslo over the land mine treaty, when just about the entire Western world was campaigning for a land mine ban, one of the holdouts was Finland. The Finnish prime minister found himself scolded by his Scandinavian neighbors for stubbornly refusing to sign on the ban. Finally, having had enough, he noted tartly that being foursquare in favor of banning land mines was a ``very convenient'' pose for those neighbors who ``want Finland to be their land mine.''

   In many parts of the world, a thin line of American GIs is the land mine. The main reason that the U.S. opposed the land mine treaty is that we need them in places like the DMZ in Korea. Sweden and Canada and France do not have to worry about an invasion from North Korea killing thousands of their soldiers. We do. Therefore, as the unipolar power and as the guarantor of peace in places where Swedes do not tread, we need weapons that others do not. Being uniquely situated in the world, we cannot afford the empty platitudes of allies not quite candid enough to admit that they live under the protection of American power. In the end, we have no alternative but to be unilateralist. Multilateralism becomes either an exercise in futility or a cover for inaction.

   The futility of it is important to understand. The entire beginning of the unipolar age was a time when this country, led by the Clinton administration, eschewed unilateralism and pursued multilateralism with a vengeance. Indeed, the principal diplomatic activity of the U.S. for eight years was the pursuit of a dizzying array of universal treaties: the comprehensive test ban treaty, the chemical weapons convention, the biological weapons convention, Kyoto and, of course, land mines.

   In 1997, the Senate passed a chemical weapons convention that even its proponents admitted was useless and unenforceable. The argument for it was that everyone else had signed it and that failure to ratify would leave us isolated. To which we ought to say: So what? Isolation in the name of a principle, in the name of our own security, in the name of rationality is an honorable position.

   Multilateralism is at root a cover for inaction. Ask yourself why those who are so strenuously opposed to taking action against Iraq are also so strenuously in favor of requiring U.N. support. The reason is that they see the U.N. as a way to stop America in its tracks. They know that for ten years the Security Council did nothing about Iraq; indeed, it worked assiduously to weaken sanctions and inspections. It was only when President Bush threatened unilateral action that the U.N. took any action and stirred itself to pass a resolution. The virtue of unilateralism is not just that it allows action. It forces action.

   I return to the point I made earlier. The way to build a coalition is to be prepared to act alone. The reason that President Bush has been able and will continue to be able to assemble a coalition on Iraq is that the Turks, the Kuwaitis and others in the region will understand that we are prepared to act alone if necessary. In the end, the real division between unilateralists and multilateralists is not really about partnerships or about means or about methods. It is about ends.

   We have never faced a greater threat than we do today, living in a world of weapons of mass destruction of unimaginable power. The divide before us, between unilateralism and multilateralism, is at the end of the day a divide between action and inaction. Now is the time for action, unilaterally if necessary.

2B) Homeland Security and National Defense
Mr. ALLARD. Mr. President, following the attacks of September 11, many Americans found themselves feeling, perhaps for the first time, a sense of vulnerability. Terrorists had successfully infiltrated our country, hijacked four of our jetliners, and committed mass suicide. Using simple tactics and superb coordination, they singlehandedly changed the American mindset in a matter of minutes.

   President Bush recognized that our way of life changed drastically on September 11. During an address to a joint session of Congress and the American people 9 days after the attacks, President Bush said the following:

   On September 11, enemies of freedom committed an act of war against our country. Americans have known wars--but for the past 136 years, they have been wars on foreign soil, except for one Sunday in 1941. Americans have known the casualties of war--but not at the center of a great city on a peaceful morning. Americans have known surprise attacks--but never before on thousands of civilians. All of this brought upon us in a single day--and night fell on a different world, a world where freedom itself is under attack.

   For nearly 10 years prior to that, our country enjoyed unprecedented peace and prosperity. The economy grew at an unbelievable rate. We were at peace with our neighbors. We focused on health-care, welfare, education, and other domestic priorities. The fall of the Soviet Union eliminated the threat to our Nation. Our defense budget shrank; our intelligence resources dwindled; and our homeland defenses remained virtually nonexistent. The biggest problem our military faced was not how best to invade Iraq, but how to keep enlisted families off food stamps.

   Our mind simply was elsewhere. A number of blue-ribbon commissions tried to get our attention. The Bremer Commission pointed out the deficiencies of our intelligence collection efforts. The Gilmore Commission revealed how disconnected, disparate, and dysfunctional our homeland security efforts were. And, the Hart-Rudman Commission discussed how much our Federal Government needed to be restructured to better combat terrorism. Yet many of the recommendations from these commissions were pushed aside as being impractical, too expensive, or unnecessary. As it turns out, they were right, and on September 11, we paid the price.

   Since that dreadful day, we have made considerable progress. We have rid Afghanistan of its terrorists-run government, disrupted terrorist operations around the world, and taken steps to improve our homeland defenses. I was pleased last November when the Congress, after 3 months of debate, approved legislation to create the Department of Homeland Security. This Department will pull together 22 agencies and nearly 200,000 Federal employees. It will not be an easy task. Tom Ridge, the new Secretary of the Department, will have his hands full for many years to come.

   The Department of Defense has also taken a number of measures to improve our homeland defense. The establishment of Northern Command was a significant organizational step toward fighting terrorism at our borders. The new commander, Air Force Gen. Ed Eberhart, will be responsible for the defense of the United States, including land, aerospace and sea defenses. NORTHCOM will also provide military assistance to civil authorities, including crisis and subsequent consequence management operations should such assistance be necessary.

   This past year the Congress went further when it created a new Assistant Secretary of Defense for Homeland Security within Department of Defense. The assistant secretary will be responsible for providing guidance and planning assistance to the various combatant commands, including NORTHCOM. The Senate Armed Services Committee, of which I am a member, held a hearing today on the President's nominee, Paul McHale, for this position.

   Despite our efforts to build stronger homeland defenses, our country finds itself confronted by numerous threats on several different fronts. As we

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   The war against global terrorism continues to require substantial resources and considerable foreign cooperation. The administration has made enormous progress in this area, but more remains to be done. Many al-Qaida operatives are at large, and several nations continue to support terror groups. We must remain vigilant and proactive if we are to prevent future terror attacks.

   With regard to Iraq, as the President said during his state of the union address, Saddam Hussein continues to hide his weapons programs, despite an aggressive weapons inspection regime. To many, the 12,000 page Iraqi declaration given to the United Nations last December was duplicative of previous declarations and revealed little of value. It only served to highlight Saddam Hussein's determination to retain his weapons of mass destruction.

   The reports earlier this week by the U.N.'s chief weapons inspectors. Hans Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei, further demonstrated that Iraq remains unwilling to give up its weapons programs. In his statement to the United Nation's Security Council, Hans Blix emphasized this point. He said,

   Unlike South Africa, which decided on its own to eliminate its nuclear weapons and welcomed the inspection as a means of creating confidence in its disarmament, Iraq appears not to have come to a genuine acceptance, not even today, of the disarmament which was demanded of it and which it needs to carry out to win the confidence of the world and to live in peace.

   Iraq has hedged, delayed, and avoided complete disarmament for over a decade. There comes a time when diplomacy and sanctions become exercises in futility. There come a time when only military action will succeed where negotiations have repeatedly failed. There comes a time when the President of the United States, as leader of the free world, must say enough is enough.

   Several press reports indicate that some U.S. allies, most notably France and Germany, may oppose military action against Iraq at this time. We should certainly take their thoughts into consideration. Our alliances should be both respected and preserved. At the same time, though, the President has an obligation to our country to do what is best for the United States--his primary responsibility is the safety and security of the American people. It is my hope that our friends and allies will recognize our determination to eliminate the threat posed by Iraq's weapons programs and support our efforts in the Persian Gulf.

   Just as we prepare to confront Iraq's growing arsenal of destruction, we cannot ignore the threat posed by North Korea's nuclear and ballistic missile programs. The Bush administration has sought to form a global consensus to deal with North Korea's WMD ambitions. Press reports indicate that the President wants the United Nations Security Council to deal with this threat to East Asia. I think this is a good first step.

   In many ways, the North Korean issue is different from the situation involving Iraq. There haven't been any U.N. resolutions calling for the disarmament of North Korea, nor have North Korea's allies, China and Russia, shown much interest in resolving this issue. A global consensus is now beginning to form. Our allies in the region, South Korea and Japan, are only starting to realize the danger North Korea's WMD efforts pose to the region.

   Five years ago, North Korea test-launched a three-stage ballistic missile over Japan that could have reached parts of the United States.

   I think that is worth repeating.

   Five years ago, North Korea test-launched a three-stage ballistic missile over Japan that could have reached parts of the United States.

   This test ended a debate as to whether our country was vulnerable to ballistic missile attacks from countries of concern. It became of question of what we were going to do about it. Finally, after much debate, the Congress authorized in 1999 the development and deployment of a national missile defense system ``as soon as it was technologically feasible.''

   Since President Bush's election in 2000, the Department of Defense has made considerable progress on a missile defense system. With additional funding and less restrictions, the Missile Defense Agency has launched a broad effort to evaluate all potential options for missile defense, including ground-based, sea-based, and even space-based defenses. The MDA now has a number of high-profile missile defense systems in development and is making progress in developing sophisticated sensors capable of detecting incoming missiles.

   As the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Strategic Programs and Operations, including missile defense, I have assisted the President in developing these systems. Last year, the Congress provided nearly $8 billion for missile defense.

   I am pleased that a number of projects are now nearing completion. The PAC-3, an enhanced version of the Patriot missile used during the gulf war capable of intercepting short and medium-range ballistic missiles, has entered into production. The Army's Theater High-Altitude Air Defense--THAAD--a system to counter medium-range ballistic missiles, is nearing production. And, perhaps most significantly, the ground-based mid-course interceptor system, which provides the United States with a limited defense against ICBMs, is scheduled to be deployed in 2004, as announced by President Bush on December 17 of this past year.

   Missile defense is not the only program that has received increased attention since President Bush's election. The DOD budget as a whole has grown substantially over the past 2 years. Last year, the Congress authorized over $390 billion in funding the department, an increase of nearly $40 billion from the year before. While much of this increase went to support our military operations overseas, some of this money was used to shore up our counter-terrorism efforts, improve our intelligence capabilities, and develop new technologies to counter the growing threats to our Nation. The department is expected to request similar funding for the upcoming fiscal year.

   The President and the Congress have worked hard over the past 2 years to reduce the threats to our Nation and prevent future attacks. It has not been easy. Partisan politics, divergent personalities, and conflicting perspectives frequently interrupt the process.

   I believe the President deserves much of the credit for this progress. He has stepped up and led our country in a very difficult time. His message has clearly resonated with the American people. Increased vigilance and enhanced security are essential in a time of uncertainty and perceived vulnerability.

   I share this message and will continue to work in the Senate to see that measures that are enacted actually increase the security of the American people.

   Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

   The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.

   The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.

   Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

   The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

   Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, how much time have we remaining?

   The PRESIDING OFFICER. Eight and a half minutes.

   Mr. THOMAS. I thank the Chair.

3A) American Foreign Policy and WMD
Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight on the eve of the historic State of the Union the President is going to provide to the American people to discuss the role that Congress has played in a very constructive way, in a very bipartisan way in assisting this President in some of the most difficult foreign policy decisions that have ever confronted this Nation.

   We have heard a lot of rhetoric about the partisan politics of this President not doing what he said he would do and this President wanting to go into war and jump ahead of events and threaten the lives of the American people, and we all know that is just rhetoric. This President, to his core, does not want war. This Congress does not want war. This Congress and this President do not want conflict. So when Members on either side get up and spew out rhetoric that makes it appear that this President is bent on creating conflict with Iraq or North Korea, it is untrue.

   I want to analyze some of the events that occurred over the recent recess, the role of Congress in a constructive way to assist this President on foreign policy. I want to lay the groundwork for what I think will be the President's comments tonight about some of the most difficult crises that we face today.

   Much of the President's speech tonight will focus on domestic issues, and I look forward to that because we have to have a blueprint to restart this economy. He will talk about education, about health care and prescription drugs, and those are issues that we have to continue to address, and this President has a plan for those issues. He has a national energy strategy that we passed in the House that got hung up in the Senate last year. We passed a prescription drug bill which could not get through the Senate. The President tonight will challenge us to complete the work domestically that he has outlined for us in the past, and he will outline a new vision in terms of jump-starting the economy.

   But the real focus has to do with our national security, because as we all know, Article I, section 8 of our Constitution, which defines the role of the Congress, does not mention health care as a key priority. It does not mention the environment as a key priority. In fact, it does not mention education. But Article I, section 8 mentions the responsibility of the Congress. In five specific instances it mentions this: To provide for the common defense of the American people. That is our ultimate responsibility, because without a strong defense, we cannot have an education system, quality health care, or a decent environment. A national security provides that underpinning.

   It is amazing to me when I hear the candidates who have announced they are running for the President 2 years down the road get up and spew out this rhetoric about how this President has caused all of these hostile relations with Saddam Hussein and other leaders around the world.

   I would remind Members, it was over the past 10 years that when we as a Nation did not enforce the arms control agreements already on the books that technologies were transferred out of Russia and China 38 times. In fact, I had the Congressional Research Service document those 38 instances. Thirty-eight times during the 1990s we had solid evidence of technology being leaked, illegally sold and transferred out of Russia and China to five countries. Those five countries were Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya and North Korea. What were those technologies? They were chemical and biological precursors that would allow Saddam Hussein to build

   chemical and biological weapons. They were missile components to allow Iraq and Iran to build their medium-range missile systems that they now have today. They were nuclear components to allow these countries to develop nuclear weapons capabilities.

   Mr. Speaker, all that occurred during the 1990s, and the documentation showed it occurred 38 times. Of those 38 instances, we imposed the required sanctions of the treaties less than 10 times. The other 28 times we pretended we did not see it, partly because our policy towards Russia during the 1990s was to keep Yeltsin in power; and, therefore, we did not want to raise any concerns that might embarrass Yeltsin back to Moscow. So even though we knew this technology was flowing, we pretended we did not see it.

   I remember very vividly a meeting in Moscow in May 1997 in the office of

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   My bipartisan delegation said, ``General, tell us about your military.''

   He said, ``Congressman, our military is in total disarray. Our best warfighters, our best Soviet generals and admirals have left the service of the country because of a lack of pay, because of indecent housing, and because of morale problems beyond their control.''

   He went on to say that they feel betrayed by the motherland, and they are selling off the technology that we built to use against the United States during the Cold War, and they are selling it to your enemies. General Lebed went on to say to our bipartisan delegation, ``Our problem today is your problem tomorrow.'' How right General Lebed was.

   Mr. Speaker, that was in May 1997 at the height of the time when many of us in the Congress in both parties were screaming for enforcement of arms control regimes, because if we had taken steps back then, Saddam Hussein and bin Laden and the rest of these terrorist cells would not have this technology that we are now having to allocate billions of dollars to defend against because Iraq and Iran could not themselves build chemical and biological agents. They got that technology from Russia, a destabilized Russia. North Korea did not have the technology for long-range missiles. They got that technology from China and also from Russia.

   So when I hear our colleagues, primarily on the other side of the aisle, taking shots at the President, saying he created all of this, it makes me sad because the facts do not support that conclusion.

   Mr. Speaker, we are paying the price today for the inaction of all of us during the 1990s. Since I was a Member of this body at that time, I include myself. We could have and we should have done more to reinforce the transparency and the control mechanisms that were in place to prevent these kinds of technologies from being leaked into the hands of unstable players.

   Mr. Speaker, unfortunately we are where we are today, and the fact is that Iraq has chemical and biological and nuclear weapons. As a senior member of the Committee on Armed Services, I have sat through hundreds of briefings. I have gone to classified intelligence sessions. While I cannot talk about what I have seen publicly, there is no doubt in my mind, there is no doubt in the mind of anyone who follows these issues, that Saddam Hussein has the worst weapons imaginable.

   Mr. Speaker, in Ken Pollack's recent book, talking about the ultimate activity that we are now in against Saddam Hussein, he quotes some U.N. special documents that compare the atrocities of Saddam Hussein's regime to those of Adolph Hitler before World War II. What is amazing to me is those candidates running for the Presidency on the Democratic side who have criticized President Bush, I did not hear their rhetoric spewing out when President Clinton went to invade Yugoslavia. And as bad as Slobodan Milosevic was and is, and thank goodness he is being tried for war crimes today, even the actions of Slobodan Milosevic do not compare to what Saddam Hussein has committed on his own people.

[Time: 15:45]

   We know that he has used chemical weapons on his own people. In fact, we had one instance where 15,000 people were killed by the actions of Saddam Hussein.

   We know Saddam has a biological weapons program. In fact, in 1992 when Saddam Hussein was driven out of Kuwait, he signed a document pledging to the world community, not just the U.S., pledging to the world community that he would disarm, he would destroy all of his weapons of mass destruction. So the inspectors from the U.N. went into his country. We knew at the time he had chemical, biological weapons. We knew they were there. We saw them. We knew they could be accounted for, and we knew he was developing a nuclear capability.

   And yet in the mid-1990's, Saddam kicked out those U.N. inspectors, and we did nothing about it. In 1998 everything was gone out of Iraq while Saddam continued to do exactly what the world community told him not to do and which he agreed not to do in 1992. When President Bush came in in 2000, he said in his very simple analysis we cannot allow this to continue. We are allowing a man who will use weapons of mass destruction against us to build additional capability, and that is why the actions that we are leading up to today through the U.N. and with the President are so essential to be supported by all of us.

   In fact, Mr. Speaker, I met with some of my Russian friends recently and they said, You know, the problem, Curt, in your country is you get out front and you have all these people taking shots at your President and Saddam Hussein reads that as weakness, he reads that as an inconsistent policy towards him and if he just holds out long enough, the antagonism in America will go away. So in effect those people in some cases crying most loudly for peace are the very ones that might lead us to war. If we as a Nation would get behind this President and show solid bipartisan support that Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction that the world has acknowledged, that need to be destroyed, then Saddam Hussein would get the message that it does not matter how long he can prolong this effort and deny the U.N. inspectors; he must open up and let us see these weapons that we know he has.

   Colin Powell yesterday said it best, Mr. Speaker. He asked some very fundamental questions: Where are the chemical weapons? Where are the mobile vans? Where are the biological agents that we know we had in the past that all of a sudden have disappeared? And my colleagues would do well in challenging this President to repeat the fact that all we want is Saddam to publicly acknowledge and then allow the destruction of those weapons to take place. Who can be against that, Mr. Speaker? No one. And if he does not do that, then we have to face the possibility of using force to accomplish the security that our Nation deserves.

   And some would say the polls do not support the President. Mr. Speaker, no decent President in American history has governed by polls. We do not elect a President to put his finger in the air to read the way the winds are blowing. We elect a President to exert leadership, to be out front where others think perhaps he is going wrong. And this President has showed that leadership time and again. Mr. Speaker, it was this President who moved us out of the ABM treaty.

   I would remind my colleagues on both sides, remember what we heard from the liberal left in this city. The world was going to end, a nuclear race would start, Russia and China would go off the deep end. We pulled out of the ABM treaty because of the President's desire to protect our own people, and there was a giant yawn around the world. Ironically today we are looking to do more missile defense cooperation with Russia than ever before. In fact, in a recent visit with the chairman of one of Russia's largest space institutes, Kurchatov, they showed me a document and asked me to support it; but I could not talk about it until the ABM treaty had expired because it would violate the terms of the treaty, allowing Russia and America to work together for the common defense of our people.

   George Bush showed leadership. In spite of what the polls said, in spite of what our colleagues said in this body and the other body, George Bush stood up for what was right for America, and history has proven that he made the right decision.

   The same thing is applicable now, Mr. Speaker. We have some extremely tough challenges. We have never had a more complicated foreign policy situation than we have today. Thank goodness we have a President who understands people who can lead. Thank goodness we have a President who put Colin Powell in the position of power, who has integrity, who has respect around the world perhaps unlike any other Secretary of State in the history of this Nation. Thank goodness we have a President who put Condoleezza Rice as the head of the National Security Council, his top advisor on security, someone who is not a politician but someone who

   understands geopolitical issues and is there at the side of the President advising him on policy direction and on procedures to deal

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   So, Mr. Speaker, I am proud of this administration; and I am proud of this President, and I am also proud of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle who have worked together for bipartisan support of some very difficult issues.

   Mr. Speaker, in December I led a delegation that started out in the former Soviet Republic of Georgia. We went to Georgia for several reasons. First of all, to meet with President Shevardnadze to assure him that we are a key ally that he could count on to help Georgia in rebuilding their Nation, their economy, and this new democracy. We went up and got the briefings on the Pankisi Gorge when we went to Moscow, we could reassure the Russians that the Georgians were doing everything possible along with American assistance to drive out the terrorist cells that had been in the Pankisi Gorge in the past that posed such a threat to the people of Russia.

   But perhaps the most important reason we went to Georgia, Mr. Speaker, was our concern that last winter the gas supplies for the Georgian people to heat their homes was cut off. In the middle of the winter they had no heat, and so I invited to meet us in Georgia the president of the primary gas supplier for that Nation. President Igor Makarov of the Itera Corporation met us in Georgia at my request, and I asked him to make a public statement, which he did; and that public statement at our suggestion was to guarantee the people of Georgia that no gas supplies would be shut off this winter so they in fact could not be dangled by anyone using energy, using heat as a source of manipulation. The Congress played an extremely constructive role in that visit, and I thank my colleagues for their support in that effort.

   We then moved on to Belarus. Belarus has not been a friend to the United States in recent years. President Lukashenko has drifted aside. He has unfortunately manipulated the Parliament and has caused problems in our relationship. In fact, just before we arrived in Minsk, the capital of that country, he kicked out the OSCE inspectors that were there to monitor human rights, free and fair elections, and the oversight of the OSCE responsibilities that all 55 member nations agree upon.

   When I arrived in Minsk, our ambassador, who is a very capable man, said, ``Congressman, President Lukashenko is not going to meet with you. He meets with no one from the West nor from America.'' I said, ``Ambassador, I would not be here if I had not received a personal invitation from President Lukashenko.'' At five o'clock on the afternoon of the evening we arrived, the foreign ministry from Belarus contacted us at the hotel and said that we were in fact invited to President Lukashenko's home for a private dinner meeting, which I attended along with my colleague from the Senate, Senator Conrad Burns, and our colleague from the House, the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Bartlett).

   We spent 5 hours, 5 hours in the home of President Lukashenko, with the President and two other individuals, one of whom was a good friend of mine. We sat around a table and for the first hour we talked about ice hockey because that is a passion of the President, and Belarus was the Cinderella team in the Olympics in America just a few years ago. And then we turned to more serious issues, and I conveyed to President Lukashenko that we wish his people no ill will, that President Bush does not want to have sour relations with Belarus, but there were certain parameters that Belarus had to get back to so that we in the Congress could support an agenda to assist the people of Belarus in dealing with their economic problems, their health care problems. And those issues deal with free and fair elections, a legitimate Parliament. Those issues deal with the concerns that we have over proliferation coming out of Belarus, and those issues deal with restoring the OSCE representatives back into Minsk.

   After 5 hours of discussion, President Lukashenko agreed with our assessment. We shook hands and we thought we had reached an agreement that would last and change a direction of our relationship with this nation that some have called one of the most untrustworthy in all of Europe. Unfortunately, the next day the foreign ministry of Belarus misinterpreted what we had said, and we had to come back publicly and make some very strong statements against the President of Belarus.

   A week later, I was contacted by my friend who is a personal friend of Lukashenko, and he said, ``Congressman

   WELDON, President Lukashenko understands that perhaps things were not conducted the way they should have been, the way it was discussed with you and your colleagues.'' The bottom line is, Mr. Speaker, that 1 month later President Lukashenko in Vienna announced that all six OSCE reps would be restored to their positions in Minsk. Congress again played a constructive role in supporting our President in moving toward a stable relationship with this nation.

   We moved on to Moscow, Mr. Speaker, and there we signed a historic document. Members of the United States House, the United States Senate, the Russian Duma, and the Russian Federation Council met together in one room to agree to a document that we all signed, supported by almost 100 members of our Congress, House and Senate, and the Russian Parliament, Duma and Federation Council. These identical pieces of legislation that we drafted back in the fall call for a new energy strategy that the U.S. should rely on Russian energy sources and move away from the troubled resources of the Middle East. The documents that we signed, which I will present to Speaker Hastert and President Bush this week, signify a new time in our relationship where the four parliaments understand a new strategic opportunity to move together, to help America move away from Middle Eastern crude, to help Russia realize the financial resources they need to help their economy by selling America her energy capabilities. While in Moscow we also met with the senior leaders of the Russian Government and the Duma and the Federation Council. We talked about arms control and proliferation, and we talked about our strategy for a new relationship, a document that one third of this Congress signed on to a year and a half ago before the first summit.

   Mr. Speaker, I am so proud of our colleagues in this body because prior to the first presidential summits, a group of our colleagues who have traveled to Russia, Democrats and Republicans together united, working with those think tanks to focus on Russian-American relations, we produced a 40-some page document with 108 recommendations in 11 key areas to say to our two Presidents that it was time that America and Russia moved together as they had announced publicly in speeches they had given. These 11 areas included agriculture, health care, education, science and technology, energy, the environment, local government, judicial systems, and defense and security. These 108 recommendations, Mr. Speaker, were endorsed by one third of this body and in the other body by our colleagues, Senator JOE BIDEN, Senator CARL LEVIN, and Senator DICK LUGAR, so that when President Bush and President Putin were hand delivered these documents, they both knew that Congress was ready to move our relationship into a new direction.

[Time: 16:00]

   That was a year and a half ago, Mr. Speaker. In May of last year, when I led a delegation of 13 colleagues to Moscow on the last day of the Moscow summit, we had a luncheon in the Presidential Hotel in downtown Moscow with Members of our Senate, our House, the Russian Duma and Federation Council. One of the former candidates for the Presidency of Russia, Gregor Lavinsky, stood up to give a speech. Mr. Speaker, he held up this document and he said this was the basis of the Russian approach to both summits.

   Again, Mr. Speaker, when the Congress unites and takes away the partisan rhetoric, we can accomplish great

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   Mr. Speaker, on our trip to Moscow in early December, I was overwhelmed with what occurred when we went to the Russian Academy of Sciences. In the former Soviet States their Academy of Sciences are the ultimate, the elite, those who really are the most respected people in those Soviet societies.

   In Russia, its Academy of Sciences is the ultimate body. It is even a part of the government. Irregardless of who the President is, the Academy is part of the government as advisors.

   I had been asked to speak to the Academy of Sciences, so we scheduled a visit. I walked in the room, and there before me were 300 academicians from all over the country. At the head table up front was former Presidential candidate and Communist Party leader Zyuganov, the former Foreign Minister and a whole host of former Russian leaders from all factions.

   The Chairman of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Mr. Osipov, was seated at the center of the head table. He brought me to the front and sat me down and said, Congressman, we are asking you to speak about this document for this new relationship which your Congress produced. I said, I will be happy to. He said, following your speech, we will open it up for questions.

   I spoke for 25 minutes with our colleagues in the audience before 300 academicians. When I finished, Chairman Osipov asked them to ask us questions, which they did. Some were tough; most were positive.

   But, Mr. Speaker, something then very strange happened. Chairman Osipov asked me to stand up and brought out a black cap and black gown, and they asked me to put it on. And then probably the most rewarding event that I have had in all of my years in public office, the Russian Academy of Sciences, the social science network, made me the first American member of their Academy. What an honor was bestowed upon me and all of my colleagues, because it was a process that involved members of both parties.

   Following that ceremony, something extremely unusual happened that I wish I could share with every colleague in this body and the other Chamber. The Russian Academy of Sciences voted unanimously to make this document their document; to make our document, A New Time, A New Beginning, the official document of the Russian Academy of Social Sciences and to distribute it to every member of the Russian Duma and Federation Council.

   Mr. Speaker, when members of both parties come together on foreign policy, we can achieve unbelievable results. We can shape the system, we can open new doors, and our colleagues from both parties deserve the praise that should be lavished on everyone for this new relationship that we have achieved with Russia.

   Mr. Speaker, following our trip to Moscow in December, I went back to Moscow a second time in January for another very special purpose. Igor Kurchatov is the founder of the Soviet nuclear bomb. Much like those in America that were nuclear scientists who did not want their careers to focus on killing people, but rather wanted peaceful use of atomic energy, Igor Kurchatov was told by Stalin to build a nuclear bomb to respond to the American program for nuclear weapons following World War II. Igor Kurchatov built the Soviet nuclear weapons program. During the Cold War, it was Kurchatov's work and the work being done at our labs that allowed the two nations to build all of these nuclear weapons.

   January 8, 2003, was the 100th anniversary of Igor Kurchatov's birth, the celebration at the institute named after him that day. It is the largest nuclear institute in Russia, with thousands of scientists.

   Mr. Speaker, I was given the honor of speaking as a keynote speaker, along with the Japanese Prime Minister and the former Foreign Minister of Russia, to talk about this new relationship and about this laboratory that was built and designed for production of nuclear weapons, but now was being transformed for peaceful purposes.

   The director of that lab, Dr. Evgeny Velikhov, is one of my best friends. He is a real scholar and a real leader for all of humanity. He has taken an agency in Russia that was designed to develop nuclear weapons and has transformed it into peaceful projects with our nuclear agencies and labs in America.

   I would include at the end of the speech, Mr. Speaker, my speech at Kurchatov entitled A New Millennium. That speech outlines a new relationship between the U.S. and Russia to take apart our nuclear weapons, to dismantle our chemical and biological weapons, to follow through on the recommendations in our document to allow the U.S. and Russia to work together.

   That speech, Mr. Speaker, was extremely well received on the Russian side, and I challenged them to build a new network of interaction between our labs and the Russian labs.

   Following that speech we cut the ribbon on a brand new training facility that is retraining 600 Russian nuclear physicists who used to work on bombs to do software engineering for Russian IT companies working with American IT companies.

   Mr. Speaker, we have come a long way. The new relationship with Russia just did not happen. It happened because the Congress, Democrats and Republicans, worked together, following the leadership of Presidents Bush and Putin, who set the vision for our nations, who talked about a new time and a new era of cooperation and support. Amazing things can happen, Mr. Speaker, when this Congress comes together and realizes that foreign policy challenges require us to act as a common body.

   Yes, we can disagree in the process, but not to the point where we undermine our strategic leadership needs as best put forth by Colin Powell and President George Bush.

   Mr. Speaker, we want to expand those programs, those nuclear nonproliferation programs, those cooperative threat reduction programs. But let me issue a word of caution to some of my colleagues in both bodies, because some have put out some misinformation that perhaps we in the House do not want these programs to move forward.

   Nothing could be further from the truth. To those who have said publicly that the House is trying to handicap cooperation with Russia and dismantling chemical and biological and nuclear weapons, I say hogwash. What we did do last year, Mr. Speaker, as the stewards of the American taxpayer dollars, is to say that every dollar we spend in Russia, we must hold them accountable for how those dollars are ultimately given out.

   Why is transparency and integrity and fiscal responsibility so critical here, Mr. Speaker? Well, for one reason, last year there was an audit done by the Department of Defense inspector general, who found $95 million misused by some unscrupulous people inside of Russia. Mr. Speaker, that is unacceptable. As much as I want to take apart chemical and biological weapons and reduce Russia's nuclear stockpile, I do not want $95 million siphoned off for some other purpose, and neither does any other taxpayer in this Nation.

   For my colleagues in both bodies to stand up and to say in op-eds and public speeches that somehow this body wants to stop those programs is absolutely false and is an outrageous misstatement. All we want in expanding these programs is transparency. All we want are some basic conditions that show the Russian side and the American contractors doing this work in Russia that we want accountability for every dollar spent. We should seek no less for the taxpayers, because it is their money that we are spending.

   As the chairman of the subcommittee that oversees much of our defense procurement, I can imagine the outrage if one of our defense contractors could not account for $95 million of taxpayer money. It would be a national scandal. But there are those in this body and the other body who want to pretend that is not a problem.

   This year we in the House will continue to support expansion of programs for nuclear nonproliferation, for cooperative threat reduction. In fact, I am preparing a new package of legislation at this very moment. But in the end we will also guarantee that every dime of money that we spend is accounted for and is not being abused by anyone.

   Mr. Speaker, following our trip to Moscow, we went on to Belgrade. We

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   Mr. Speaker, I have to tell you, I was disappointed. We bombed Belgrade, we bombed Yugoslavia, and we promised after the bombing as a Nation and as a group of nations that we would help them rebuild if they followed certain conditions. Mr. Speaker, they have followed those conditions. Our embassy in Belgrade certified to us that they are making progress, yet we, Mr. Speaker, and our allies have not taken the steps to properly support the rebuilding of Yugoslavia, and that is an outrage.

   So I come back tonight and I plead to our colleagues in both bodies to work to live up to the promises that we made to the people of Yugoslavia, that they, in fact, can rebuild their country which we bombed just a few short years ago to rid them of the scourge of Milosevic.

   Our last stop on that trip, Mr. Speaker, was in

   Vienna. The trip to Vienna had two purposes, to receive at the IAEA the most recent briefing on nuclear weapons in both North Korea and Iraq. For 2 hours we sat at their headquarters, and they walked us through this Agency's assessment of the nuclear capability and potential of Iraq and the nuclear capability and potential of North Korea.

   I would tell my colleagues, Mr. Speaker, it was not a pretty briefing. In fact, I invited the IAEA to come to Washington, which they accepted, where they will allow for every Member of Congress to receive the same briefing, the briefing as to the capabilities of both North Korea and Iraq with nuclear weapons and nuclear facilities such as the reactors that are being built in North Korea, the reactor being built in Iraq, and the potential for that material to be used illegally by either or both nations.

   Mr. Speaker, we also in Vienna visited the OSCE, hosted by our very capable Ambassador Steve Minikes. At the OSCE headquarters I had the privilege to speak to 10 of the major nations' ambassadors, including Russia, about America and our policies relative to the OSCE. Ambassador Minikes and the OSCE team is doing a fantastic job. Again, it is because of the bipartisan support of people like the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer) and the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Smith) and those people who involve themselves in the interparliamentary dialogue that is a part of the OSCE process.

   So, Mr. Speaker, I come full circle, and I come full circle because tonight in a few short hours the President will stand behind us and give a speech, and a major part of his speech will focus on foreign policy. I say to my colleagues, Mr. Speaker, we have proven time and again that we can take on any challenge the Nation has and win if we stick together, if we take apart the partisan rhetoric and get down to the substance of what America needs to do.

[Time: 16:15]

   None of us want war. None of us want conflict. None of us want to see Americans go overseas and shed any blood. Now is the time for us to stand together, at the most difficult point in the recent history of this Nation. We face the scourge of terrorism. We face uncertainty in the Middle East. We face China and Taiwan, North and South Korea, India and Pakistan, all of which require us as a Nation to act together; to disagree on the way we approach these solutions, but to do it in a civil way, to show these countries that, in the end, we are united. I would just caution our colleagues in both bodies in both parties to understand the importance of that approach to these very difficult foreign policy challenges.

   Mr. Speaker, one final word. Over the recess, as it was for the past year, we have tried to take a bipartisan delegation into North Korea, to DPRK. In May of last year, 13 of our colleagues were together. We went to Moscow, we went to Beijing and Seoul, being promised all along we would get visas to go into North Korea to open some dialogue with Kim Jong-il and the North Korean Supreme People's Congress. We were denied that ability; even though we had been promised, we were not given the ability to travel in there to open doors.

   In August we received an e-mail from the North Korean Government to try again. I went back up to the U.N. two more times and met with the DPRK ambassador, Ambassador Han, and pleaded with him to allow us to bring a delegation in. In January of this year, with his support, I reissued a letter asking for support for our delegation to visit, equal Members of Democrat and Republican from this body. With the support of President Jiang Zemin in China, which we received in May of last year personally, and with the support of Kofi Annan who called me at home a week ago and said Congressman, we are behind your effort; with the support of his chief interlocutor who has been working the DPRK issue for the U.N., Maurice Strand; with the support, quietly, of our own government, aware of what we were doing and not telling us to oppose it, the North Korean Government again has consistently opposed an effort, an honest effort by Democrats and Republicans, to open a new dialogue.

   So, Mr. Speaker, I thank our colleagues in both parties who have stood together and said, we will go back to Pyongyang, we will take a delegation in, we will have a discussion, we will tell Kim Jong-il and the North Korean people that we wish them no ill will, we do not want a war with them, we want to encourage the south in its effort to establish a peaceful relationship, but there are certain things that the DPRK must do, as outlined by our President and Secretary of State. They must return to their commitment to a safe policy of relationships with our neighbors. They must end their program of developing highly enriched uranium which will lead to nuclear weapons; and if they take those steps, then we can peacefully cooperate with them. We can become a trading partner, and we in this body can open new doors and new opportunities as we have done with Russia, as we have done with other nations around the world.

   So in closing, Mr. Speaker, I encourage our colleagues tonight who have done so much, so much good with so much foreign policy challenge existing around the world, Democrats and Republicans have consistently united; and I encourage my colleagues to look for that opportunity again, so that following the State of the Union tonight we can come out with one voice, with one Nation and say that we all want to avoid war. But we must continue to exert the pressure that was required by the U.N. resolutions in 1992, that was required by the arms control agreements that North Korea has now opted out of, and if they come back to the normalcy that they were once a part of, that, in fact, we can have peaceful coexistence without conflict.

   Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleagues for their cooperation. I will insert the speech, ``A New Millennium,'' that I presented to the institute as a part of the Congressional Record at this time.

   A New Millenium

   To stand before you today--as an American, as a member of the United States House of Representatives--and deliver the keynote address in celebration of the 100th birthday of Igor Kurchatov, is an astonishing privilege. An invitation to attend this important occasion would have been honor enough. That I stand here as a principal speaker is so much more than I could have ever imagined. It is truly a humbling experience.

   How far we--the United States and Russia--have come! From adversaries to friends, from competitors to partners--we have moved huge distances from the world of our youth. The cold war is over, finished forever. Today, Russians and Americans are called to be the instruments of a new and, hopefully, more peaceful, prosperous, and democratic world in which each and every human being on this globe will live in peace and dignity.

   I have had a lifelong interest in Russia. I have studied Russian language, history and culture. Over time, I have been blessed with many opportunities to travel to this great country. I have learned that the Russians are a proud people, historically aware, and mindful of Russia's unique global role.

   I also have a passion for science and the good things it can accomplish. My home city of Philadelphia was the home of a famous American, Benjamin Franklin. As a child I was told of the wonderful discoveries and practical application of science by Mr. Franklin, who is one of the founders of our nation. I have since been interested in what science can do for mankind. Russia and science make such a wonderful combination, a combination that could springboard to a wonderful and prosperous future.

   One hundred years ago--on January 8, 1903--Igor Kurchatov, son of a nobleman who was himself the grandson of a serf, was born

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   We gather here today more than 40 years after his death to pay tribute not only to him, but the institute that bears is name. Indeed, the occasion of Igor Kurchatov's 100th birthday provides us with an opportunity to salute the entire Russian scientific community, especially the nuclear science community. For it is my firm belief that the emerging future of a prosperous, democratic Russia will rely on the hard work and talent of Russia's scientific and engineering community--a community that Igor Kurchatov was instrumental in establishing.

   As I briefly trace some of Igor Kurchatov's accomplishments, I want to begin at the end of his life--in 1958, more than 40 years ago. In his last public address, Kurchatov said, ``I'm glad that I have dedicated my life to Soviet nuclear science. I believe that our people and government will use science only for the good of mankind.''

   Today, on the 100th anniversary of his birth, I believe Kurchatov's final wish is coming true. From my position in the United States, I have had the opportunity over the past decade of seeing the Russian scientific community emerge from the shadows of the cold war and turn their formidable talents toward peaceful contributions to Russia and to the world. Even as I speak here today, the men and women in the institute that bears his name are hard at work, beating their swords into plowshares. And they are not alone in this great task--as scientists and engineers at other Russian institutes also turn to science to serve--rather than destroy--humanity.

   Igor Kurchatov was both a world-class scientist and a loyal citizen of the Soviet Union. He was the father of the Soviet Union's atomic bomb. His country depended on him to create and provide its nuclear deterrent during the cold war. He succeeded in this demanding task under very difficult circumstances, despite the tyranny of his bosses: Joseph Stalin and Lavrenti Beria. He succeeded very well. The Soviet nuclear arsenal became and remained a serious worry of the United States throughout the cold war.

   In retrospect, I can say that the nuclear deterrence of the United States and the Soviet Union provided the basis for stability during dangerous times of enmity and opposition. These weapons kept us from ever firing a shot in war or anger against one another. However we might think about that 50-year era and whether nuclear weapons and the threat of mutual assured destruction through their use was moral or wise, deterrence worked. Both countries--indeed the entire world--escaped the devastation of nuclear weapons because both countries had them and both recognized the consequences of their use.

   The scientific infrastructure that Igor Kurchatov created to bring this about is, and will remain his enduring legacy, long after the days of the nuclear deterrence created by the capability of mutually assured destruction fades from our collective memory. What Kurchatov created goes well beyond nuclear weapons and encompasses the entire range of peaceful uses of the atom. No one can dispute the world-class capabilities of Russia's present nuclear science network. It is your inheritance from him.

   The later part of Kurchatov's career was spent increasingly on peaceful uses of nuclear strategy. He oversaw the construction of particle accelerators and research in fusion. This new focus occupied him as his health gradually deteriorated. Like his fellow scientist Sakharov, he called for an end to nuclear testing.

   Kurchatov died in February 1960 of a blood clot in the brain. His last public appearance was to attend a performance of Mozart's Requiem. The haunting refrain of dona eis requiem (grant them peace) must have rung in his ears as he returned home from the concert hall moments before he died. I repeat that refrain now: dona eis requiem, grant the world peace, grant him--Igor Kurchatov--the peace that belongs to a man of peace.

   You--the scientists and citizens of Russia--carry his torch into tomorrow. You are carrying it into an uncertain future. The future is always uncertain, no matter how hard we try to prepare for it. Your work will delineate the tomorrows for your children and grandchildren. It will define the future and improve it for Russia and the world. You--the scientists and engineers of Russia--have already begun the next phase of scientific endeavors for your country, and you have done it in the most difficult and troubling of times, and in the face of grave uncertainty.

   I stand here today and tell you that you are not alone in this quest. The United States of America will stand with you as you build a new prosperous and democratic Russia. I am proud that the United States has been a partner with Russia and its scientists in so many ways since the end of the Soviet Union. I, as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, have supported all of the efforts of our U.S.-Russian partnership--whether through the International Science and Technology Center, the Initiatives for Proliferation Prevention, or the Nuclear Cities Initiative. I have supported the joint U.S.-Russian work on nuclear materials--the conversion of Weapons-grade highly-enriched uranium (HEU) into Low-enriched uranium (LEU) for use in peaceful power reactors, the transformation of Weapons Plutonium into MOX fuel, also for peaceful use in reactors, and the safeguarding of nuclear material through the joint Materials Protection Control and Accounting (MPC&A) program.

   The list of our partner projects goes on and on. I expect that we shall walk hand-in-hand in the scientific community's efforts against terrorism. These programs are also a key to Russia's and the United States' joint efforts to prevent the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

   I am particularly interested in how you, the scientists and engineers of Russia, can transform your nation through the commercialization of Russian science, often in cooperation with U.S. companies. I see such commercialization as a key to future Russian prosperity.

   Last month, I attended and addressed the annual meeting of the United States Industry Coalition, a group of more than 140 companies working with Russia and other former Soviet republics in cooperative scientific commercial ventures. These private companies have put aside all vestiges of cold war thinking. They are committed to and see the importance of creating jobs and viable business in Russia as their contribution to peace. I believe that such cooperation with the U.S. will help create, if not become, the locomotive of a new and prosperous Russian economy that takes full advantage of your greatest strengths--the thousands of excellent scientists, engineers, and technicians.

   The institute that bears Igor Kurchatov's name plays a major role in all of these efforts. Its leaders, Academicians Evgeny Velikhov and Nicholai Nicholoaivotich Ponomarev-Stepnoi, have shown an aggressiveness and entrepreneurial spirit that should be emulated by all the science institutes of Russia. They see the future of Russia in high tech industries. One of the most foresighted efforts in this area is their participation with the United States Industry Coalition to create a sister organization, the National Industry Coalition here in Moscow, to encourage Russian companies to take advantage of Russia's technical expertise in new business ventures.

   The Kurchatov Institute is not just standing still, waiting for tomorrow, but it creating the future. I urge all the scientific institutions of Russia to emulate the endeavors of those who are creating a new high tech commercial community in Russia. This need not just be an effort on behalf of weapons scientists.

   We have the opportunity to accomplish so many things in our new U.S.-Russian partnership. We are already doing so against the horrors of terrorism and will do much more in that critical area. In fact, there are few areas where the United States and Russia cannot work together.

   Last year I put together a blueprint for a U.S.-Russian partnership. This document was endorsed by one-third of the United States Congress. I called it A New Time, A New Beginning. In this document I present a new vision for U.S.-Russian relations. I wrote in because I believed then, and even more so today, that now is the time, with Vladimir Putin and George Bush as presidents of our two countries, to improve our relationship for the long-term. It is time to stop the roller coaster ride of the past decade and settle down into a steady forward path. Our route must continue to take full account of defense and security issues, even when they collide. However, it is now time to move beyond these issues as we step into the new millennium. It is time to take a holistic approach to cooperation--one that takes into account Russia's myriad concerns and needs as well as those of the United States.

   I would like to describe the series of initiatives that I have proposed. These initiatives take a comprehensive view of what might be accomplished if we--the United States of America and the Russian Federation--set our minds and hearts on them. They deal with initiatives in environment, energy, economic development, and health care--as well as defense and security. Let me describe what I believe can be accomplished if we have the will and perseverance to stay the course.

   It is time for greater cooperation on agricultural development. This means not only improving production, but expanding private-sector investment.

   We must facilitate Russia's accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) and its acceptance of all WTO agreements. In addition, we should increase funding for OPIC and the U.S. Export-Import Bank projects here in Russia. Also essential for economic development is improvement of intellectual property rights so that companies will invest here.

   Energy and natural resources are one of the great strengths of Russia. We should cooperate in oil and gas exploration, for example in Timan Pechora. Success in joint cooperation on energy will hinge on eliminating bureaucratic obstacles on both sides of the oceans. Our collaboration should investigate the energy security implications in this new environment of sub-national terrorism and the efforts of both our nations to snuff out such terrorism.

   Of course, I consider cooperation in science and technology to be a linchpin of our future relationship. Our future economies will rest most assuredly on the ability to capitalize on new science and technology and create new businesses that meets the world's needs.

   This cooperation includes cooperation in the area of nuclear fuel cycles. We must put

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   We should also cooperate in the embryonic nanotechnology industry.

   We have the opportunity to perform joint cutting-edge research in medical technology and treatments. The Department of Energy and Institutes such as MINATOM can collaborate on breakthrough technologies such as radiopharmaceuticals and advanced medical diagnostic and treatment equipment. We can also encourage research on devastating chronic illnesses such as cardiovascular disease and diabetes between the U.S. National Institutes of Health and appropriate Russian Research institutes. Our cooperation would include a more extensive exchange of physicians and scientists.

   Scientists would also cooperate in Space and Aeronautics on projects like space solar power, propulsion technology and weather satellites. They would also expand cooperation on marine science research and on developing Russian technologies for environmental protection and remediation.

   I would like to see creation of a fund from Russian foreign debt transferal that would be the economic engine for many of these initiatives. For example, commercial success in technology could lead to repayment of loans or grants from the fund. Such repayments could then be the basis for new investments in these programs.

   Of course there are many other ways in which we should become partners. I propose to also include cultural and educational development, improvement of the Russian judicial and legal systems in order to firmly establish the ``rule of law,'' as well as assistance to local Russian governments so that they can provide necessary services to the public and also encourage democracy at the grass roots level.

   This is a very ambitious agenda that I propose. I put it forward because I happen to believe that there is no limit to what we can achieve in our partnership. After all, it is a new time. And new times call for new beginnings.

   Much has happened in the one hundred years since the birth of Igor Kurchatov. The vast scientific and technical complex that is his legacy has done much to advance knowledge and technology. It will do much more if we set our minds to it.

   Before leaving Washington to travel to Russia and Kurchatov, I sought the personal feelings and thoughts of another great leader in the world of nuclear physics--a man who met Igor Kurchatov and professionally respected the work of this great man. Born in the same decade as Igor Kurchatov, Edward Teller was a key architect of the early nuclear work of the United States. Now in his 90's, living in California, Edward Teller wanted me to relay his personal feeling on this great occasion.

   He said, ``like Igor Kurchatov, I long for peace far more than I oppose war.'' He went on to say that ``cooperation between scientists is the most important aspect of the United States and Russia working together--it is a splendid foundation for future progress when former adversaries work together.''

   One hundred years after the birth of two men who devoted their lives to nuclear research and whose lives and thoughts were focused on peace while their countries used their work for security--it is appropriate that we look to move to a new level of cooperation in nuclear science that forges a 21st century U.S./Russian alliance that builds on and rededicates our two great nations to the peaceful use of nuclear energy for the improvement of the quality of life for all human beings on the face of the Earth.

   I propose that we create the Kurchatov-Teller Alliance for Peace that brings together in a formal way Kurchatov Institute and the labs of the Ministry of Atomic Energy with Lawrence Livermore Laboratory (Teller's base of operation today) with Oak Ridge, Argonne, Los Alamos and the labs of our Department of Energy for the specific purpose of enhancing the use of nuclear power worldwide while controlling proliferation. Projects like Thorium Power (that offer so much promise in stopping weapons production and eliminating environmental problems) and cutting edge research by scientists in both nations can be brought together within one new bi-lateral entity that truly moves us into a ``New Time and New Beginning.''

   We are still at the beginning of the 21st Century. Much as Kurchatov set out to do in the last century, we have the opportunity to solve the problems and challenges of the next 100 years. The scientists and engineers of our countries--together with the businessmen and entrepreneurs in both countries--could solve nagging problems of safe, environmentally friendly, and plentiful energy sources. They can solve difficult and complicated medical issues and use science to increase agricultural production. We have an almost limitless horizon before us.

   Our task ahead is daunting--some might say impossible. But I am the eternal optimist--perhaps born out of being the youngest of nine children in a poor family. My parents never completed high school, yet they were the smartest people that I have ever met--they had common sense and moral decency.

   My father, who only went to the 8th grade, gave me some advice as a youngster that is just as fitting to our challenge. He said in life you can accomplish almost anything that you can dream. He used to say ``Your only limitations in life will be those that you self-impose.'' And that applies to us today.

   Together, following in the footsteps of the great scientific leaders of our past, like Igor Kurchatov, our two great nations can solve any problem, overcome any challenge and rise to any occasion for the good of mankind--if we work together as one.

   And so, I shall end where I began, by expressing my profound gratitude for the honor you have bestowed on me by inviting me to make this address. I am your friend and I will continue to work for our joint U.S.-Russian interests. Let us work together. Let us clear out the underbrush, let us do away with petty bureaucratic obstacles on both sides of the Atlantic. Both governments have to commit themselves to making cooperation easier, and not filled with time-consuming procedures. You can be assured that this U.S. Congressman will work tirelessly toward this goal.

   Again, I thank you for inviting me. I wish you all well. God bless the United States and Russia.

3B) (Excerpted) State of the Union Address
Since September 11th, our intelligence and law enforcement agencies have worked more closely than ever to track and disrupt the terrorists. The FBI is improving its ability to analyze intelligence, and transforming itself to meet new threats. And tonight, I am instructing the leaders of the FBI, Central Intelligence, Homeland Security, and the Department of Defense to develop a Terrorist Threat Integration Center, to merge and analyze all threat information in a single location. Our government must have the very best information possible, and we will use it to make sure the right people are in the right places to protect our citizens.

   Our war against terror is a contest of will, in which perseverance is power. In the ruins of two towers, at the western wall of the Pentagon, on a field in Pennsylvania, this Nation made a pledge, and we renew that pledge tonight: Whatever the duration of this struggle, and whatever the difficulties, we will not permit the triumph of violence in the affairs of men--free people will set the course of history.

   Today, the gravest danger in the war on terror ..... the gravest danger facing America and the world ..... is outlaw regimes that seek and possess nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons. These regimes could use such weapons for blackmail, terror, and mass murder. They could also give or sell those weapons to their terrorist allies, who would use them without the least hesitation.

   This threat is new; America's duty is familiar. Throughout the 20th century, small groups of men seized control of great nations ..... built armies and arsenals ..... and set out to dominate the weak and intimidate the world. In each case, their ambitions of cruelty and murder had no limit. In each case, the ambitions of Hitlerism, militarism, and communism were defeated by the will of free peoples, by the strength of great alliances, and by the might of the United States of America. Now, in this century, the ideology of power and domination has appeared again, and seeks to gain the ultimate weapons of terror. Once again, this Nation and our friends are all that stand between a world at peace, and a world of chaos and constant alarm. Once again, we are called to defend the safety of our people, and the hopes of all mankind. And we accept this responsibility.

   America is making a broad and determined effort to confront these dangers. We have called on the United Nations to fulfill its charter, and stand by its demand that Iraq disarm. We are strongly supporting the International Atomic Energy Agency in its mission to track and control nuclear materials around the world. We are working with other governments to secure nuclear materials in the former Soviet Union, and to strengthen global treaties banning the production and shipment of missile technologies and weapons of mass destruction.

   In all of these efforts, however, America's purpose is more than to follow a process--it is to achieve a result: the end of terrible threats to the civilized world. All free nations have a stake in preventing sudden and catastrophic attack. We are asking them to join us, and many are doing so. Yet the

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   Different threats require different strategies. In Iran, we continue to see a government that represses its people, pursues weapons of mass destruction, and supports terror. We also see Iranian citizens risking intimidation and death as they speak out for liberty, human rights, and democracy. Iranians, like all people, have a right to choose their own government, and determine their own destiny--and the United States supports their aspirations to live in freedom.

   On the Korean peninsula, an oppressive regime rules a people living in fear and starvation. Throughout the 1990s, the United States relied on a negotiated framework to keep North Korea from gaining nuclear weapons. We now know that

   the regime was deceiving the world, and developing those weapons all along. And today the North Korean regime is using its nuclear program to incite fear and seek concessions. America and the world will not be blackmailed. America is working with countries of the region--South Korea, Japan, China, and Russia--to find a peaceful solution, and to show the North Korean government that nuclear weapons will bring only isolation, economic stagnation, and continued hardship. The North Korean regime will find respect in the world, and revival for its people, only when it turns away from its nuclear ambitions.

   Our Nation and the world must learn the lessons of the Korean peninsula, and not allow an even greater threat to rise up in Iraq. A brutal dictator, with a history of reckless aggression ..... with ties to terrorism ..... with great potential wealth ..... will not be permitted to dominate a vital region and threaten the United States.

   Twelve years ago, Saddam Hussein faced the prospect of being the last casualty in a war he had started and lost. To spare himself, he agreed to disarm of all weapons of mass destruction. For the next 12 years, he systematically violated that agreement. He pursued chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons even while inspectors were in his country. Nothing to date has restrained him from his pursuit of these weapons--not economic sanctions, not isolation from the civilized world, not even cruise missile strikes on his military facilities. Almost 3 months ago, the United Nations Security Council gave Saddam Hussein his final chance to disarm. He has shown instead his utter contempt for the United Nations, and for the opinion of the world.

   The 108 U.N. weapons inspectors were not sent to conduct a scavenger hunt for hidden materials across a country the size of California. The job of the inspectors is to verify that Iraq's regime is disarming. It is up to Iraq to show exactly where it is hiding its banned weapons ..... lay those weapons out for the world to see ..... and destroy them as directed. Nothing like this has happened.

   The United Nations concluded in 1999 that Saddam Hussein had biological weapons materials sufficient to produce over 25,000 liters of anthrax--enough doses to kill several million people. He has not accounted for that material. He has given no evidence that he has destroyed it.

   The United Nations concluded that Saddam Hussein had materials sufficient to produce more than 38,000 liters of botulinum toxin--enough to subject millions of people to death by respiratory failure. He has not accounted for that material. He has given no evidence that he has destroyed it.

   Our intelligence officials estimate that Saddam Hussein had the materials to produce as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard, and VX nerve agent. In such quantities, these chemical agents also could kill untold thousands. He has not accounted for these materials. He has given no evidence that he has destroyed them.

   U.S. intelligence indicates that Saddam Hussein had upwards of 30,000 munitions capable of delivering chemical agents. Inspectors recently turned up 16 of them, despite Iraq's recent declaration denying their existence. Saddam Hussein has not accounted for the remaining 29,984 of these prohibited munitions. He has given no evidence that he has destroyed them.

   From three Iraqi defectors we know that Iraq, in the late 1990s, had several mobile biological weapons labs. These are designed to produce germ warfare agents, and can be moved from place to place to evade inspectors. Saddam Hussein has not disclosed these facilities. He has given no evidence that he has destroyed them.

   The International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed in the 1990s that Saddam Hussein had an advanced nuclear weapons development program, had a design for a nuclear weapon, and was working on five different methods of enriching uranium for a bomb. The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa. Our intelligence sources tell us that he has attempted to purchase high strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production. Saddam Hussein has not credibly explained these activities. He clearly has much to hide.

   The dictator of Iraq is not disarming. To the contrary, he is deceiving. From intelligence sources, we know, for instance, that thousands of Iraqi security personnel are at work hiding documents and materials from the U.N. inspectors--sanitizing inspection sites, and monitoring the inspectors themselves. Iraqi officials accompany the inspectors in order to intimidate witnesses. Iraq is blocking U-2 surveillance flights requested by the United Nations. Iraqi intelligence officers are posing as the scientists inspectors are supposed to interview. Real scientists have been coached by Iraqi officials on what to say. And intelligence sources indicate that Saddam Hussein has ordered that scientists who cooperate with U.N. inspectors in disarming Iraq will be killed, along with their families.

   Year after year, Saddam Hussein has gone to elaborate lengths, spent enormous sums, taken great risks, to build and keep weapons of mass destruction--but why? The only possible explanation, the only possible use he could have for those weapons, is to dominate, intimidate, or attack. With nuclear arms or a full arsenal of chemical and biological weapons, Saddam Hussein could resume his ambitions of conquest in the Middle East, and create deadly havoc in the region. And this Congress and the American people must recognize another threat. Evidence from intelligence sources, secret communications, and statements by people now in custody, reveal that Saddam Hussein aids and protects terrorists, including members of al-Qaida. Secretly, and without fingerprints, he could provide one of his hidden weapons to terrorists, or help them develop their own.

   Before September 11, 2001, many in the world believed that Saddam Hussein could be contained. But chemical agents and lethal viruses and shadowy terrorist networks are not easily contained. Imagine those 19 hijackers with other weapons, and other plans--this time armed by Saddam Hussein. It would take just one vial, one canister, one crate slipped into this country to bring a day of horror like none we have ever known. We will do everything in our power to make sure that day never comes.

   Some have said we must not act until the threat is imminent. Since when have terrorists and tyrants announced their intentions, politely putting us on notice before they strike? If this threat is permitted to fully and suddenly emerge, all actions, all words, and all recriminations would come too late. Trusting in the sanity and restraint of Saddam Hussein is not a strategy, and it is not an option.

   This dictator, who is assembling the world's most dangerous weapons, has already used them on whole villages--leaving thousands of his own citizens dead, blind, or disfigured. Iraqi refugees tell us how forced confessions are obtained--by torturing children while their parents are made to watch. International human rights groups have catalogued other methods used in the torture chambers of Iraq: electric shock, burning with hot irons, dripping acid on the skin, mutilation with electric drills, cutting out tongues, and rape.

   If this is not evil, then evil has no meaning. And tonight I have a message for the brave and oppressed people of Iraq: Your enemy is not surrounding your country--your enemy is ruling your country. And the day he and his

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   The world has waited 12 years for Iraq to disarm. America will not accept a serious and mounting threat to our country, our friends, and our allies. The United States will ask the U.N. Security Council to convene on February 5th to consider the facts of Iraq's ongoing defiance of the world. Secretary of State Powell will present information and intelligence about Iraq's illegal weapons programs; its attempts to hide those weapons from inspectors; and its links to terrorist groups. We will consult, but let there be no misunderstanding: If Saddam Hussein does not fully disarm, for the safety of our people, and for the peace of the world, we will lead a coalition to disarm him.

   Tonight I also have a message for the men and women who will keep the peace, members of the American Armed Forces: Many of you are assembling in and near the Middle East, and some crucial hours may lie ahead. In those hours, the success of our cause will depend on you. Your training has prepared you. Your honor will guide you. You believe in America, and America believes in you.

   Sending Americans into battle is the most profound decision a president can make. The technologies of war have changed. The risks and suffering of war have not. For the brave Americans who bear the risk, no victory is free from sorrow. This Nation fights reluctantly, because we know the cost, and we dread the days of mourning that always come.

   We seek peace. We strive for peace. And sometimes peace must be defended. A future lived at the mercy of terrible threats is no peace at all. If war is forced upon us, we will fight in a just cause and by just means--sparing, in every way we can, the innocent. And if war is forced upon us, we will fight with the full force and might of the United States military--and we will prevail. And as we and our coalition partners are doing in Afghanistan, we will bring to the Iraqi people food, and medicines, and supplies . . . and freedom.

   Many challenges, abroad and at home, have arrived in a single season. In 2 years, America has gone from a sense of invulnerability to an awareness of peril . . . from bitter division in small matters to calm unity in great causes. And we go forward with confidence, because this call of history has come to the right country.

   Americans are a resolute people, who have risen to every test of our time. Adversity has revealed the character of our country, to the world, and to ourselves.

   America is a strong Nation, and honorable in the use of our strength. We exercise power without conquest, and sacrifice for the liberty of strangers.

   Americans are a free people, who know that freedom is the right of every person and the future of every nation. The liberty we prize is not America's gift to the world, it is God's gift to humanity.

   We Americans have faith in ourselves--but not in ourselves alone. We do not claim to know all the ways of Providence, yet we can trust in them, placing our confidence in the loving God behind all of life, and all of history.

   May He guide us now, and may God continue to bless the United States of America.

   Thank you.

   George W. Bush.

   The White House, January 28, 2003.

3C) Renaming of United States-China Security Commission
AMENDMENT NO. 166 AS FURTHER MODIFIED

   On page 713, strike line 23 and all that follows through page 714, line 3, and insert the following:

   SEC. 209. UNITED STATES-CHINA ECONOMIC AND SECURITY REVIEW COMMISSION.

   (a) APPROPRIATIONS.--There are appropriated, out of any funds in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated, $1,800,000, to remain available until expended, to the United States-China Economic and Security Review Commission.

   (b) NAME CHANGE.--

   (1) IN GENERAL.--Section 1238 of the Floyd D. Spence National Defense Authorization Act of 2001 (22 U.S.C. 7002) is amended--

   (A) In the section heading by inserting ``

   ECONOMIC AND'' before ``SECURITY'';

   (B) in subsection (a)--

   (i) in paragraph (1), by inserting ``Economic and'' before ``Security''; and

   (ii) in paragraph (2), by inserting ``Economic and'' before ``Security'';

   (C) in subsection (b)--

   (i) in the subsection heading, by inserting ``ECONOMIC AND'' before ``SECURITY'';

   (ii) in paragraph (1), by inserting ``Economic and'' before ``Security'';

   (iii) in paragraph (3)--

   (I) in the matter preceding subparagraph (A), by inserting ``Economic and'' before ``Security''; and

   (II) in subparagraph (II), by inserting ``Economic and'' before ``Security''; and

   (iv) in paragraph (4), by inserting ``Economic and'' before ``Security'' each place it appears; and

   (D) in subsection (e)--

   (i) in paragraph (1), by inserting ``Economic and'' before ``Security'';

   (ii) in paragraph (2), by inserting ``Economic and'' before ``Security'';

   (iii) in paragraph (3)--

   (I) in the first sentence, by inserting ``Economic and'' before ``Security''; and

   (II) in the second sentence, by inserting ``Economic and'' before ``Security'';

   (iv) in paragraph (4), by inserting ``Economic and'' before ``Security'' and

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   (v) in paragraph (6), by inserting ``Economic and'' before ``Security'' each place it appears.

   (2) REFERENCES.--Any reference in any Federal law, Executive order, rule, regulation, or delegation of authority, or any document of or relating to the United States-China Security Review Commission shall be deemed to refer to the United States-China Economic and Security Review Commission.

   (c) MEMBERSHIP RESPONSIBILITIES, AND TERMS.--

   (1) IN GENERAL.--Section 1238(b)(3) of the Floyd D. Spencer National Defense Authorization Act of 2001 (22 U.S.C. 7002) is amended--

   (A) by striking subparagraph (F) and inserting the following:

   ``(F) each appointing authority referred to under subparagraphs (A) through (D) of this paragraph shall--

   ``(i) appoint 3 members to the Commission;

   ``(ii) make the appointments on a staggered term basis, such that--

   ``(I) 1 appointment shall be for a term expiring on December 31, 2003;

   ``(II) 1 appointment shall be for a term expiring on December 31, 2001; and

   ``(III) 1 appointment shall be for a term expiring on December 31, 2005;

   ``(iii) make all subsequent appointments on an approximate 2-year term basis to expire on December 31 of the applicable year; and

   ``(iv) make appointments not later than 30 days after the date on which each new Congress convenes;'',

   (2) RESPONSIBILITIES OF THE COMMISSION.--The U.S.-China Commission shall focus on the following nine areas when conducting its work during fiscal year 2003 and beyond:

   (A) PROLIFERATION PRACTICES.--The Commission shall analyze and assess the Chinese role in the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and other weapons (including dual use technologies) to terrorist-sponsoring states, and suggest possible steps which the U.S. might take, including economic sanctions, to encourage the Chinese to stop such practices.

   (B) ECONOMIC REFORMS AND UNITED STATES ECONOMIC TRANSFERS.--The Commission shall analyze and assess the qualitative and quantitative nature of the shift of United States production activities to China, including the relocation of high-technology, manufacturing, and R&D facilities; the impact of these transfers on United States national security, including political influence by the Chinese Government over American firms, dependence of the United States national security industrial base on Chinese imports, the adequacy of United States export control laws, and the effect of these transfers on U.S. economic security, employment, and the standard of living of the American people; analyze China's national budget and assess China's fiscal strength to address internal instability problems and assess the likelihood of externalization of such problems.

   (C) ENERGY.--The Commission shall evaluate and assess how China's large and growing economy will impact upon world energy supplies and the role the U.S. can play, including joint R&D efforts and technological assistance, in influencing China's energy policy.

   (D) UNITED STATES CAPITAL MARKETS.--The Commission shall evaluate the extent of Chinese access to, and use of, United States capital markets, and whether the existing disclosure and transparency rules are adequate to identify Chinese companies which are active in United States markets and are also engaged in proliferation activities.

   (E) CORPORATE REPORTING.--The Commission shall assess United States trade and investment relationship with China, including the need for corporate reporting on United States investments in China and incentives that China may be offering to United States corporation to relocate production and R&D to China.

   (F) REGIONAL ECONOMIC AND SECURITY IMPACTS.--The Commission shall assess the extent of China's ``hollowing-out'' of Asian manufacturing economies, and the impact on United States economic and security interests in the region; review the triangular economic and security relationship among the United States, Taipei and Beijing, including Beijing's military modernization and force deployments aimed at Taipei, and the adequacy of United States executive branch coordination and consultation with Congress on United States arms sales and defense relationship with Taipei.

   (G) UNITED STATES-CHINA BILATERAL PROGRAMS.--The Commission shall assess science and technology programs to evaluate if the United States is developing an adequate coordinating mechanism with appropriate review by the intelligence community with Congress; assess the degree of non-compliance by China and United States-China agreements on prison labor imports and intellectual property rights; evaluate U.S. enforcement policies; and recommend what new measures the United States Government might take to strengthen our laws and enforcement activities and to encourage compliance by the Chinese.

   (H) WORLD TRADE ORGANIZATION COMPLIANCE.--The Commission shall review China's record of compliance to date with its accession agreement to the WTO, and explore what incentives and policy initiatives should be pursued to promote further compliance by China.

   (I) MEDIA CONTROL.--The Commission shall evaluate Chinese government efforts to influence and control perceptions of the United States and its policies through the internet, the Chinese print and electronic media, and Chinese internal propaganda.

   (3) EFFECTIVE DATE.--This subsection shall take effect on the date of enactment of this Act.

4A) Iraq Has Not Disarmed
Mr. HUNTER. Madam Speaker, 6,500 chemical bombs, which is roughly 1,000 tons of deadly chemical; 2,000 chemical rockets, 8,500 liters of biological agent or medium, and that is enough to produce some 5,000 liters of anthrax; these weapons are the weapons which Chief Weapons Inspector of the United Nations Hans Blix says the Iraqi Government has failed to produce for the inspecting teams. In other words, Iraq has not disarmed.

   Now, we have heard in the last several months lots of statements from the administration, and we have heard statements from proponents of the President's policy and from opponents of the President's policy. But these are the statements from the United Nations weapons inspector whose job was to go to Iraq, confront the Iraqi Government with their own statements, their own declarations and documents, some of which we had captured, others which they had produced during the 1990s, list the items line by line saying, here are weapons that you listed; where are they? And, in fact, Iraq has now failed to produce those weapons, meaning Iraq has failed to disarm.

   This is an exercise in disarmament. That is where the country which is being inspected is supposed to make a declaration as to what weapons they have, just like South Africa did with its nuclear program, and then offer up the locations of those stockpiled weapons and that machinery that produces the weapons for destruction by this international body. In fact, Iraq has done what we predicted it would do, and that is that it has hidden these weapons, which it heretofore had proclaimed it had. We know they have them, we know they have them buried somewhere, and they are failing to produce them. That is, they are failing to disarm, and those are the words of the Chief Weapons Inspector.

   Madam Speaker, let me just go to a couple of particulars once more. I am quoting Chief Weapons Inspector Hans Blix. He says, ``The document indicates,'' and he received the document from the Iraqi Air Force as to how many bombs they had had at one time, chemical bombs, because we know they use chemical bombs on their own people and on their neighbors, and he said, ``The document indicated that some 13,000 chemical bombs were dropped by the Iraqi Air Force between 1983 and 1998, while Iraq has declared that 19,500 bombs were consumed during this period. Thus, there is a discrepancy of some 6,500 bombs. The amount of chemical agent in these bombs would be in the order of about 1,000 tons. In the absence of evidence to the contrary, we must assume that these quantities are now unaccounted for.''

   So, Madam Speaker, we know what they had, we know what they have. Incidentally, Chief Inspector Hans Blix goes through each one of these circumstances where they have failed to come forward and produce the weapons or show evidence that they were destroyed. And in these cases that I have cited, there is no evidence that they have destroyed any of this stuff. We know it is still there, and we know it is there in most cases not by evidence that we received through a third party, but by the statements of Iraq itself at a previous time.

   In turning to biological weapons, Mr. Blix said, and I quote, ``I mentioned the issue of anthrax to the Council on previous occasions, and I come back to it as an important one. Iraq has declared that it produced 8,500 liters of this biological warfare agent which it states it unilaterally destroyed in the summer of 1991.'' So Iraq claimed that they had gotten rid of this in secret, and he says, ``I find no convincing evidence for its destruction.''

   He goes on. He says, ``As I reported to the Council on the 19th of December last year, Iraq did not declare a significant quantity, some 650 kilos, of bacterial growth media which was acknowledged as reported in Iraq's submission to the panel in February 1999. As a part of its 7 December, 2002, declaration, Iraq resubmitted the Amorim Panel document, but the table showing this particular import of media,'' and this is the media from which you grow anthrax, extremely deadly anthrax, he said, ``The table showing this report was not included. The absence of this table would appear to be deliberate, as the pages of the resubmitted document were renumbered.'' Meaning that Iraq pulled out this 650 kilos of anthrax media, simply tore that page out of the report, renumbered the report, and handed it to the weapons inspectors. That 650 kilos, incidentally, is enough growth media to produce about 5,000 liters of anthrax.

   So we know now that Saddam Hussein has maintained and kept both biological weapons and chemical weapons, and he has failed to turn them over. He has failed to disarm.

   Does he have a method to deliver these weapons? Yes, he does. They include the AS-2 and the AF-2 missiles, which are illegal missiles, because these missiles have been tested for ranges beyond 150 kilometers that Saddam Hussein is limited to.

[Time: 19:30]

   He has also refurbished his missile infrastructure, that means his capability to develop and build missiles to carry these chemical and biological weapons to their targets. He has also acquired, very recently, some 300 rocket engines.

   So the point is, Mr. Speaker, that when the smoke all clears, at least with respect to the work that has been done so far, I think what has happened is pretty predictable, because we on the Committee on Armed Services in the House had in open session an Iraqi engineer who appeared before us who was part of Saddam Hussein's weapons development program. He said to us that even in the 1990s when we had inspectors on the ground and those inspectors were being shown the insides of big empty buildings, a few miles away Saddam Hussein's program was going at full steam and the inspectors did not know anything about it.

   So take this country, which is twice the size of the State of Idaho, and take this small contingent, roughly the size of a police force in a small American city, and spread them out over a piece of land twice the size of Idaho. And having given the other guys literally years to hide their weapons, it is no surprise that no weapons are found. In fact, if some of our inspectors walked into the middle of one of these big

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   So the idea that somehow we are going to stumble upon a large number of weapons is not realistic. That is what we have been saying for a long time.

   The message to us is very clear: Iraq has not disarmed. They have no intention of disarming. The documented proof of their weapons systems that they have maintained, when matched against what they have produced, shows that they still have enormous chemical and biological weapons on hand, along with the means to deliver them.

   Mr. SAXTON. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

   Mr. HUNTER. I am happy to yield to my friend, the gentleman from New Jersey.

   Mr. SAXTON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. I would just say to the gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter), I thank him for taking this time to bring this very important issue before the House and, indirectly, before the American people.

   We just returned from a break. I had plenty of time, ample time, back home to talk with my constituents, and in fact traveled around the country a bit to talk with others from other people's districts. The report that the gentleman makes reference to that is the Hans Blix report I think speaks volumes to the questions that I was asked as I made my way around my district and around other people's districts.

   The basic question was: How do we know, or how does the administration know and how will the Congress help to determine what our policy should be toward Iraq when the inspectors cannot find any weapons, any weapons of mass destruction? This report speaks volumes to this.

   However, before this report even came out, there were very strong indications here in the Congress in the hearings that the Committee on Armed Services held, both closed hearings and open hearings, where members of the administration, representatives of the Department of Defense, and representatives from our intelligence apparatus or institutions would come before us and would

   say, here is what we know.

   Without going into the specifics of what we heard in those closed sessions, this report that the gentleman from California (Chairman HUNTER) has gone to great lengths to describe, which we have heard about through the media all day, verifies much of the information that we learned during those sessions earlier this year, actually in the fall.

   Also, I think it is very interesting to point out that yesterday the Secretary of State in a speech in Switzerland said something that I think is extremely important on this same question of how do we know if we cannot find the weapons. The Secretary of State said simply this: we have known for a long time that Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction. After all, he used them in the war against Iran. After all, he used them against his own people, that is, chemical weapons, which the gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter) referred to here just a short time ago.

   Then the Secretary of State went on to say that the question is not and the job of the weapons inspectors is not to find the weapons; the job, as designated in Resolution 1441, is to seek the cooperation of the Iraqi Government in proving that they have destroyed their weapons. That is where the Iraqi Government has been lacking. The Iraqi Government has steadfastly denied having any weapons, but has failed to offer an iota of proof.

   For example, if chemical weapons have been destroyed, why can we not talk to the people who destroyed them? If there are no biological weapons, if those biological substances have been destroyed, where were they destroyed? Show us. Let us talk to the people that destroyed them.

   Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I would tell the gentleman, we have documents that were produced by Iraq during the 1990s where they gave us the names of some 3,500 key people in the development of their chemical and biological weapons. Do Members know what has happened to those people? They have disappeared.

   We asked them during this round, according to Hans Blix, to produce those people. They only produced 400 of them. Of course, they do not let any of them talk without an Iraqi keeper or bureaucrat standing next to them. Also, they do not even produce the other 3,000 people. Those 3,000 people in Iraq who are associated with their chemical and biological weapons program have apparently disappeared from the face of the Earth. They tell us we may get another 80 to talk to at some point, but the 3,000 have disappeared.

   Mr. SAXTON. This seems to me to be just what Colin Powell, the Secretary of State, was talking about when he said that the question really is when, on the one hand, the Iraqi Government says there are no biological or chemical or nuclear weapons, why then on the other hand will they not show us evidence to prove that? And the answer seems to me, in light of the Blix report, quite simple: these weapons really exist, and therefore they cannot prove that they do not.

   So I think that the answer to the question that my constituents and people that I talked to in other parts of the country over the break, the answer to the question is quite evident. The answer is that these weapons do exist, just as we have maintained for years, and in particular in the last month.

   So both Secretary Powell and Hans Blix in different words came to the same conclusion. Hans Blix says on this subject, ``In the absence of evidence to the contrary, we must assume that these weapons exist.'' We have assumed, based on evidence that was gathered by the Committee on Armed Services during the fall of this year, that they continue to exist.

   Another question which I think is important, and I think this report bears on this question as well, my constituents and people around the country ask me: What do the French, the Germans, the Russians, and the Chinese know that we do not? They are part of the United Nations Security Council, as well. I say that the evidence that is pointed out in the Blix report should be taken very seriously and taken to heart by the French and the Germans and the Russians and Chinese, because they have as much at stake in this as we do.

   This report, which speaks volumes, is an extremely important document. I think one of the statements in the report by Hans Blix, who has had an opportunity, obviously, to review the 12,000 pages which the Iraqi Government forwarded in terms of its supposed accuracy as an accurate report on the condition of their weapons of mass destruction program, Hans Blix says, we have seen this all before. It is essentially 12,000 pages copied from the transmissions that were given to previous teams of arms inspectors, so the Iraqis have offered us nothing new here. In fact, they have shown us once again that they are, as Hans Blix said publicly today, not prepared to endorse the concept of disarmament.

   The Bush administration, the President himself, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, Vice President Cheney, Secretary of State Powell, have all maintained in different ways for months that we have to do something to engage this problem. The Blix report from an independent United Nations-appointed inspection team has now verified the contentious situation that actually exists within the Iraqi Government today.

   I am pleased and again I want to thank the gentleman from California for taking this time so that he and I together can share this information with our colleagues, and indirectly with the American people.

   Mr. HUNTER. I thank my distinguished colleague, and I thank him for all the work that he has done and for the work that he is going to do as chairman of this new subcommittee on the Committee on Armed Services, which is going to oversee a great deal of this activity.

   Let me just end by saying that we predicted that the tours that the U.N. weapons inspectors were given would not result in them walking into a big cavernous building and having a supply

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   We predicted that the Iraqi Government, which has devoted entire agencies to hiding this stuff as effectively as they could, will have done just that, that is, to hide it in such a way that we would be more likely to be able to ask all of the drug dealers in Washington, D.C. to amass all of their illicit cocaine and marijuana and pile it in one big area where the authorities could come down and seize it on a given day.

   The burden was on Iraq to disarm. That is the key. It is not a game where we have certain rules and if they are able to beat us, if they are able to hide this stuff well enough, we do not find it. We know they have it because the 6,500 chemical bombs, the 2,000 chemical rockets, the precursors for 5,000 liters of anthrax, are weapons which exist according to Iraqi documentation, not our documentation but their documentation that they had produced earlier; also, those 3,000 people who are associated with the programs, those 3,000 technical people who now have disappeared off the face of the Earth.

   So they have it. They have it just as surely as Nazi Germany had a weapons program of massive proportions in the mid-1930s, even though they were giving reports to the Allies that the air force that we appeared to see in the skies was actually flying clubs that were organized for recreation; but we knew that they were in fact producing weapons. In this case, we know for a fact that Iraq is still heavily weaponized, with the ability to kill lots of its neighbors and lots of Americans and their allies.

   So this report is, I think, more dramatic in what it says they have not produced than what it says they have produced. I think it is becoming clearer and clearer that the inspections are not going to produce a situation in which the inspectors walk into a giant facility and, lo and behold, there are piles of weapons sitting there on the floor produced by the most ineffective Iraqi bureaucrat in history. They will not disarm.

   Mr. SAXTON. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will continue to yield, I just would like to add that earlier today in a news report I saw or heard that the Secretary General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, suggested that the inspectors need more time. Also, the Secretary of State today indicated that if there was going to be more time, it would not be much; but there is going to be more activity on the part of the inspectors.

   I would say this: I suspect that the people who are listening to this are not in a position to answer these questions. But if Saddam Hussein or his foreign minister or somebody was listening, I would say to them that we know that they had thousands of artillery shells that were capable of carrying chemical substances that would kill people to their targets. They say they have destroyed them.

[Time: 19:45]

   If you have destroyed them, show us where they were destroyed, show us where the remnants of them are, and let us talk to the people who did it. Let us talk to the people who destroyed them. If you do not have chemical weapons, show us how you destroyed them. Show us the people, let us talk to the people that destroyed your chemical weapons. That is how we verify. If you do not have biological weapons, show us the disposition of what you had and let us talk to the scientists, let us talk to the personnel that destroyed it, because we know you had it, and we believe you still have it today. And if you are serious about making statements that you do not have it, that these weapons do not exist, then show us how they were destroyed.

   And with regard to their nuclear weapons program, we know that the Iraqis imported aluminum tubular material that is designed and built specifically for the production of nuclear material. If those no longer exist, show us how you destroyed them and let us talk to the scientists and let us talk to the personnel who destroyed them. We have not seen any of these things, and we have not talked to any of these people, or the inspectors have not, I should say.

   I heard today another statement that this process is not about finding weapons, it is about developing trust. It is about developing trust between the Iraqi Government and the rest of the governments of the world. This is how we develop trust, by verifying your statements so that we can trust. And so I hope that this process will move forward.

   The gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter) and I are sometimes asked by people why we favor going to war. We do not favor going to war. We favor dismantling the weapons of mass destruction that the Iraqis have, and we have supported the process of inspections. We have supported the process of investigation. We have supported the process of questioning. We have supported the process of asking questions as to where these materials are, whether they have been destroyed. And it is only as a last resort that we would ever advocate using military force. The gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter) has a son in the Marine Corps. The last thing in the world the gentleman wants to do is to see our country in another military conflict.

   Just last Friday I went to Paris Island where I proudly watched my nephew Curt graduate from basic training in the Marine Corps. The last thing I want to see is Curtis in Iraq or anyplace else fighting a war that can be averted by cooperation between people and cooperation between countries and the development of trust.

   So once again I give the floor to the gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter). I hope that the Iraqis will in the next very short period of time cooperate with the United Nations and the leadership of various countries around the world.

   Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman, and I think it is clear one last time to point out that there are 6,500 chemical bombs that Iraq will not give up, it has not disarmed; a couple of thousand chemical rockets; and 8,500 liters of what is known as biological media for the production of anthrax that is capable of producing about 5,000 liters of anthrax. So they have not disarmed. And facts are stubborn things. Those are the facts.

   Mr. Speaker, I would recognize the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Collins), who has a major infantry base in his district, the great Fort Benning, where I have spent lot of time low crawling.

   Mr. COLLINS. It is home for the infantry, chief of the infantry.

   Mr. Speaker, I have listened with strong interest here with the comments of the gentlemen about the numbers that came through the report today, and the gentleman here with his comments, too, and I am glad both of you all are on the Committee on Armed Services. They have put forth very good points here and made very good points of what is going on.

   This was a major conversation piece in my district. As I have pointed out, the President of the United States does not want to go to war. The purpose of all the deployment to the Middle East is to deal with this issue from strength, to send the message large, loud and clear to Saddam Hussein that the decision for war is his. The President has said that he will make the decision, Saddam will make the decision. The lack of coming forward with the information that they have previously given in verifying, as so well put by the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. SAXTON), is evidence he is making a decision.

   His clock is ticking. Time is running out. He has to make a decision as to own up to the disarmament, how it has been done, who did it and verify, or we, as the United States, have no choice but to follow his decision, Saddam Hussein's decision.

   Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. I thank the two gentlemen for their comments and their remarks in support of the United States and our freedom.

   Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his very eloquent point. Saddam Hussein has not disarmed. We know what he has. He has not brought it forward, and we will continue to march down the next several weeks to see if he brings those weapons out for destruction.

4B) Iraq Must Disarm
Mr. GIBBONS. Mr. Speaker, today, U.N. Chief Inspector Hans Blix issued his report outlining the continued defiance and noncompliance of Saddam Hussein. After over 2 months and 350 inspections, Iraq continues to conceal pertinent information on its weapons of mass destruction . We know of thousands of liters of biological and chemical agents, such as anthrax and mustard gas, that are still unaccounted for.

It is clear that Iraq is in material breach of U.N. resolutions because it refuses to fully cooperate, and it refuses to accept complete disarmament as demanded by the entire international community. Now is the time for the United Nations to stand strong, and now is the time to hold Iraq responsible to the international community. We do not have the luxury of time with such a dangerous despot as Saddam Hussein, a man who has used biological and chemical weapons on his own people.

We cannot allow Saddam Hussein to continue to have control over an arsenal that threatens all peace-loving nations. Iraq must be disarmed, or it must voluntarily disarm.

4C) Iraq
Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, as President Bush prepares to address the Nation on the state of the Union, we stand, to state the obvious, at a precipice of a momentous decision: War, war with Iraq.

   The American people, and the world, for that matter, are waiting to hear what the President's decision is and his rationale for it. They are waiting to hear a clear explanation of why war may be the only remaining alternative and what will be expected of them not only in winning the war but what will be expected of the American people for us to win the peace.

   A generation ago, I and my entire generation learned a very important lesson. That lesson was: No matter how brilliant or how well thought out a foreign policy may be, it cannot be sustained without the informed consent of the American people.

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   To date, there has been no informed consent. That is not a criticism; it is just an objective observation. For the President, to date, has not had the requirement, in the hope of avoiding war, to inform the American people in detail of what the consequences of war will be and what will be expected of them.

   To date, the American people only know that Saddam Hussein is a brutal dictator, who has used weapons of mass destruction against his own people, and that he is the man who invaded Kuwait, and we expelled him. They are not sure as to whether or not he is an imminent threat; that is, a threat to those security moms, not soccer moms, who are in their living rooms and are worried about the health of their children and the safety of their homes.

   The American people are confused, I would respectfully suggest, by the President's talk and the administration's talk of a new doctrine of preemption, and whether or not this is the basis upon which we are arguing we should act, or that we are acting to enforce, essentially, a peace agreement, a peace agreement signed by Saddam Hussein at the end of the Kuwaiti war that said: In return for me being able to stay in power, I commit to do the following things.

   They are under the impression--the American people--because of the signals being sent by the Secretary of Defense and his civilian subordinates, that this war will be short, essentially bloodless, and, just as in 1991, Johnny will come marching home again in several weeks, if not several months, after a decisive, bloodless military victory.

   The American people are assuming we will lead a very broad coalition of other nations and have the world behind us in our effort. They further assume, contrary very much to the hard evidence, that the defeat of Saddam Hussein will be a major setback for Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida and other terrorist organizations.

   In short, they are under the assumption that one of the reasons we are moving against Saddam is that we will literally make terrorists' actions much less probable in the United States of America than they are today. For why else would we use all this power we have assembled in the gulf to go after Iraq rather than using all this power to go after Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan and in northwestern Pakistan where he most probably is according to our intelligence community?

   They put it together. Obviously, the President would not take 250,000 forces, invade, if we must, Iraq, if he didn't think that would materially affect what I, as an American man, or woman thinks is the greatest threat to me, another 9/11. They also assume, contrary to any hard evidence, that Saddam Hussein is months away from developing a nuclear weapon that could strike American soil, for which he has no capacity, nor in any reasonable prospect in the future would he have any capacity to send a nuclear weapon airborne from Iraq to the United States.

   Lastly, they seem to think the financial cost of this war will be manageable and not cause any further economic disruption, for why else for the first time in American history is the President of the United States calling for war, the possibility of war involving 250,000 American troops, at the very same time he is going to call, tonight, for a $650 billion tax cut? That has never been done in the history of the United States of America. Obviously, they think the President wouldn't do that unless this was going to be pretty costless, this war.

   In short, I don't think the American people have been told honestly what will be expected of them and what additionally may be asked of them if things don't go so well. I think they will go well. I am one who has not been happy in the way we have proceeded, who thinks this war will be prosecuted in a way that will absolutely, to use the expression younger people use, blow the mind of the world in terms of our military prowess. But it may not.

   Why is it so critical to inform the American people? Why, beyond their democratic right to know, is it so vital? I will answer that by telling you a story.

   On December 8, 2002, I was in Qatar being briefed by General Franks, witnessing the preparation for war, and the war games were being carried on. There were assembled in this secure room--a gigantic hangar with a movie screen literally larger than the size of the wall behind the Presiding Officer, probably somewhere around 30 feet high and 40 feet wide--200 generals. I have never seen so many stars in my life, other than when I was a little kid lying on my back looking up on a crystal clear night in the middle of the summer.

   I was asked, after being briefed by these warriors, whether or not I would address the assembled crowd, all active military personnel planning this war. These men and women to a person were ready to go and were secure in their knowledge that they would successfully complete their mission if asked to by defeating Saddam Hussein, if ordered to do so. What they were unsure of was us, the politicians, and whether we were willing to tell the American people exactly what was likely to be asked of them and were the American people willing to continue to give them the support they were going to need over a long haul, not the short haul? And it will be a long haul, regardless of how quickly and successfully we wage this war.

   For those fighting men and women in this room know it is going to be necessary to stay in Iraq for a long time, to have tens of thousands--I predict over 75,000 American forces remaining in Iraq a minimum of a year and a half and, I predict, 5 years after we secure victory. And they wanted to know whether or not the American people knew that, for they don't want to be over there a year from now when the debate comes up and it is between another $20 billion to stay in Iraq and $20 billion for education or for a tax cut. We have no right to put them in that squeeze again, as happened a generation ago.

   They also wanted to know if Saddam, as some suggest--and

   I am revealing nothing; I am not speaking from classified reports--and his 120 to 150,000 Republican Guard, the only ones we are really worried about, their capacity, if they retreat to Baghdad, a city, a city of 5 million people, are the American people prepared to continue to support our military when they see the inevitable happen? Innocent women and children being killed. We know what will happen. We know if they retreat to Baghdad they will retreat to hospitals, apartment complexes, and our fighting women and men, if this happens--and it is not sure it will--would have to go door to door. They were worried that the response would be the same response that occurs seeing Israelis knocking down a building or seeing a child killed in the crossfire.

   They are worried they will become the bad guys, particularly, as I said, if the Republican Guard falls back to a city of 5 million people. Imagine going house to house in Philadelphia or Houston, routing out 2, 5, 10, 20, 50, 70,000 fighters. I told them that I believed this generation and the American people would pay whatever price and pledge its support to them, but only if they had informed consent. But that has not been done yet, and it must be done.

   For while it is reasonable to expect the best, it would be irresponsible not to prepare for the worst. Iraq could lash out against Israel, Saudi Arabia and/or Kuwait in an effort to start a wider war. It could use weapons of mass destruction against our troops or its neighbors. It could destroy its oil fields and those of its neighbors. It could start giving away its weapons of mass destruction to terrorists.

   It could create a humanitarian nightmare among the Kurds in the north and the Shia in the south, denying them food or medicine, even using chemical weapons against them, as Saddam has done in the past, and as I saw for myself when I met the survivors a month ago in northern Iraq.

   Maybe none of these unintended consequences will occur, but there is a decent chance that one or more will. We must put every chance on our side and prepare the American people for what is bad as well as what is good. Hopefully that will be done tonight or sometime soon by the President, but not after the fact. The world, our allies, also are waiting for a clearer explanation of why war.

   I just returned from the World Economic Forum and found myself confronted with the most uniform and significant anti-American sentiment I

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   It raises several questions that need to be answered. Why do they feel this way? Why should it matter? And if it does matter, what should we do about it? Why? There are multiple reasons, and my pointing them out to a predominantly non-American audience of hundreds if not thousands of world leaders was not always appreciated the last 4 days, let alone agreed with. Let me give you some of the reasons why they feel the way they do, not all of which are legitimate, by any means.

   There is a lack of strong leadership in the respective countries that has been unwilling to tell their people the truth about Saddam Hussein and the commitment their country and the world made to deal with him when he sued for peace over 10 years ago. There are selfish economic motives on the part of some of our allies with regard to their favored position with regard to oil or telecom and scores of other areas.

   Another reason is the resentment of America's predominant position as the world's most powerful military and economic nation as well as our cultural dominance, from Coca-Cola to rap music to English on the Internet, all of which they resent in the same way we would all resent if tomorrow our States predominantly said, we are going to switch to a different language because a predominant number of people in our State speak that language.

   This is compounded by the belief that the President is being pushed by the right wing of his administration to further leverage this predominant position into an even more dominant position relative to the rest of the world. It is also compounded by an inability to contribute much in the way of a fight, either by augmenting our military strength or their own, as well as a seething resentment at our unwillingness to use the forces they offered us in Afghanistan after declaring that an article 5 breach had occurred under our NATO treaty.

   With regard to Iraq specifically, many don't see Saddam as a credible threat to them. Their people don't believe our assertions. They say he no longer has the weapons of mass destruction that we know he has. They believe in the aftermath of victory, we will not stay until there is a stable Government in Iraq--as we have not stayed in Afghanistan sufficiently--and they believe the resulting power struggle within Iraq, in their region, will have disastrous consequences for their Governments because they have all heard this administration say it will not be engaged in nation building. And they all know, and everyone knows, we are going to have to be engaged in nation building after we win the war.

   All of this is compounded by the obvious discussion within the administration: The announcement of a new doctrine of preemption that has yet to be explained to us, let alone them; the appearance of a great power being petulant when a President stands before the world and says ``I am growing impatient, I am getting tired''; the apparent contradiction in the rest of the world's mind of the treatment of the threat from North Korea, which has weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear , has a record of proliferation, and has violated international agreements, and we are talking to them; whereas, Iraq, which has no nuclear weapons--we cannot find the weapons of mass destruction, and there is scant evidence of similar proliferation--they say we speak with two different voices--the feeling that the administration has acted, without serious consultation, unilaterally in unceremoniously withdrawing from further negotiations, from international structures, such as climate control, criminal courts, ABM, and others.

   Isn't the only thing that matters whether we make it work in the long run, which is what they hear from some in this administration? Won't it all disappear when we succeed, as we hear some in this administration say, because everybody loves a winner, right? Wrong. It matters what other nations think because our most basic immediate interests cannot be fully secured without a longer term cooperation with these other nations because we must convince them and not coerce them.

   Let me give a few examples of what our most immediate vital interests are. Crushing international terror: How can you do that without cooperation from the intelligence services from Jakarta to Berlin, from Paris to Beijing, from Moscow to Rio? Preventing North Korea from escalating its nuclear programs and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and doing so without a war: How can we succeed without the cooperation of Russia, China, Japan, and South Korea, other than through war? All of this leads to the perception that some within the administration argue that it is better to go it alone. They have a belief that is the President's position. I don't believe it is his position, but what do they hear? They hear the theories proffered by some in the civilian Defense Department saying, if we move in the face of world public opinion, the rest of the world knows we will mean business and the more we do it alone, the more we will impress upon the rogue nations that they

   better change or they are next. They also hear us saying that Europe is tired, indecisive, and ultimately unwilling to do what is necessary to keep the peace and commands too much of our resources and attention, particularly, as the Secretary of Defense said, ``old Europe,'' France, and Germany. They keenly resent these characterizations.

   I think this is an inaccurate description of where President Bush is, but I do believe, though, that his choice of words and failure to clearly explain his choices and basis for action when we do act has been dangerous to our standing in the world, which leads me to a second question.

   Why should it matter what our standing is--what the rest of the world thinks of us? I believe it matters a lot. Preventing a nuclear war on the subcontinent between India and Pakistan matters. But as we announced a unilateral pronouncement of a ``new'' doctrine of preemption--whatever that means is yet to be explained--that leads to the conclusion in India and Pakistan that if we can act preemptively, why can they not act preemptively against one another? Conveying our values to the rest of the world so as to diminish the misunderstanding of our motives runs constantly into some of the assertions that come from some in this administration.

   Let me get right to it, Mr. President. It matters what other nations think, and it matters that although we can force other nations to do things, it matters how we do it. Here is an example. There is a new Government in Turkey--newly elected represented by an Islamic Party. That Islamic Party recently won the election, and the Prime Minister is a guy named Gul. The real operator is a guy named Erdogan. They were leading this Islamic Party and they have decided they want to have Turkey remain a secular state and they want to be integrated into Europe with regard to the EU. It is very much in the interest of the United States of America--very much--that that happens. We do not want an Islamic state; we want a secular state looking west.

   So what is the problem? We can offer $5 billion and essentially buy the support to allow us to launch from Turkey. But if we do that in the absence of a worldwide consensus that what we are doing is right, we may meet our immediate goal and lose a heck of a lot. Here is an example. Right now, in Turkey--which I recently visited and I know the Presiding Officer knows this--over 85 percent of the Turkish people are unalterably opposed to a war with Iraq and unalterably opposed to Turkey cooperating with us in being able to successfully prosecute that war. So what happens if we go to war and we launch from Turkey with the support of the new Islamic leadership without having changed the minds of the people in Turkey and/or the world, to suggest that this is not merely us, but that it is sanctioned by the world that we do this? Well, the roughly 35 to 40 percent of this Islamic Party that is radical Islamic will play to its populist instincts and cause incredible trouble for the existing administration in Turkey and, I believe, force them to move away from their commitment to a secular state.

   So that old biblical proverb, what does it profit a man if he gains the world and loses his soul--paraphrasing

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   What have we gained?

   I will answer the third question, and then conclude. So what should we do? I have argued that out of our self-interest it matters what other nations think. So what should we be doing? I begin by saying, given where we are now, coupled with Saddam Hussein being in material breach--that is a fancy phrase for saying not explaining what he has done with the weapons of mass destruction we know he has--those two things may force us to choose between the better of two not-so-pleasant options.

   The option I would choose in this circumstance, if we do not get world support, is that Saddam is in material breach of the latest U.N. resolution. Yesterday's damning report by the U.N. inspectors makes clear again Saddam's contempt for the world and it has vindicated the President's decision last fall to go to the U.N.

   The legitimacy of the Security Council is at stake, as well as the integrity of the U.N. So if Saddam does not give up those weapons of mass destruction and the Security Council does not call for the use of force, I think we have little option but to act with a larger group of willing nations, if possible, and alone if we must. Make no mistake about it, we will pay a price if that is the way we go. We will have no option, but we will pay a price, a price that could be significantly reduced if from this moment on we act, in my humble opinion, more wisely.

   What should we be doing from this point on? I will be very brief now and expand on this later. One, we should lower the rhetoric. We should not appear to be the petulant nation, wondering why the rest of the recalcitrant world will not act with us, showing our impatience. It does not suit a great nation well. It would not suit my father well, were he alive. It does not suit someone of stature well--and we are a nation of stature.

   Two, we should make the case not only privately to our partners by sharing more proof of Saddam's crimes and possessions, but also to our people and in turn to the whole world. Legally, he is in breach, but going to war based on that legal breach will cost us in ways we would not have to pay if we go to war with the rest of the world understanding that there is something there beyond the failure to account.

   The third thing we should do is give inspectors more time, for their very presence in Iraq diminishes the possibility of sharing weapons of mass destruction with terrorists or continuing their quest for nuclear weapons. Inspectors are not a permanent solution. We know from our experience of the last decade that Iraq will try to make their mission impossible. We also know that sustaining a massive deployment of troops is expensive and hard on our men and women in uniform. But right now the inspectors are helping us build support for our policy, both at home and abroad, and we should let them keep working in the near term.

   The fourth thing we should do is articulate clearly and repeatedly not only the legal basis for our action, if we must move, but our commitment to stay until we have a stable Iraq, and that means the following: The President should state clearly tonight, we are not acting on a doctrine of preemption, if we act. We are acting on enforcement of a U.N. resolution that is the equivalent of a peace treaty which is being violated by the signatory of that treaty, and we have a right to do that and it is the world's problem. It is not what we hear out of the civilian Defense Department, this cockamamie notion of a new doctrine of preemption which no one understands.

   Two, our objective has to be clearly stated as eliminating weapons of mass destruction and not the destruction of Iraq, for that is the President's purpose.

   Thirdly, we will in fact participate in nation building; we will seek U.N. support and we will tell the American people what we are asking of them and why, for they have no idea now what is expected of them. They do not know what the costs will be to remove Saddam and they should. They do not know how many troops will have to stay in Iraq to secure the country, and we have estimates, and what it will take to get a representative government that lives up to its international obligations.

   Can we count on our friends and allies to share the burden? Can we afford to attack Iraq, fully fund homeland security, cut taxes for the wealthiest Americans, and finish the unfinished war on terrorism in Afghanistan and other places?

   These questions should never be excuses for inaction, but they must be answered if we want the American people's support and we want to avoid the mistakes of the past.

   I yield the floor.

4D) Iraq Has Not Destroyed WMD
Mr. DOMENICI. I conclude with some comments on Iraq. I hope that tonight our President will tell our people the issue in Iraq is why has Saddam Hussein not destroyed the weapons of mass destruction that are in his country; not that we did not find them, not that we did not find a smoking gun.

   The United Nations verified that he had thousands of weapons in his country, thousands of weapons of biological and chemical makeup that can kill millions of people.

   I ask unanimous consent for 2 additional minutes.

   The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Chafee). Without objection, it is so ordered.

   Mr. DOMENICI. Some 9 or 10 years ago, the United Nations said Saddam must get rid of them, and then we pulled out. The United Nations sat around, Iraq started selling oil again, and Saddam started being Saddam. Then we decided we will go in and see if he has gotten rid of them. Noncompliance by him means he has not shown what happened to the weapons .

   The 12,000-page document, which was all over the press as if they had submitted 12,000 pages of real explanation, was presented some days ago as though it explained where these thousands of weapons went. The United States and its agents of absolute integrity have read every single page, every single line. The conclusion is that the 12,000-page document is a farce. It does not explain what happened to all of those weapons . It is a joke.

   They put in those pages what they wanted, and they described what they wanted. The sum total is, where are they?

   He continues to say: I am showing them everything. And we continue to say: It is your responsibility to show us what you did with them. After all, it is not like every country in the world would accept thousands of these chemical weapons . Some nation that is crazy enough to take them would have to be found. So we have to be told they are not here. But where are they? If they are dumped in the ocean, somebody would find out. They cannot easily be gotten rid of so he has not gotten rid of them. He hid them.

   Now we are telling the world there is noncompliance. I hope the world sees it our way, but more importantly I hope Saddam sees it our way. I hope he understands there are a lot of us that understand what is going on and that it is like I just said: He better come clean or, in fact, something will happen. I hope he does it himself and I hope our friends realize they better join us in putting him on the spot or he will put the world on the spot, and he will do it very soon.

   I yield the floor.

   The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.

4E) International Legal Issues and Iraq
Mr. BOND. Mr. President, the news has been focusing, and much of the discussion in this Chamber has been on, the threat that Iraq poses. I have listened to some of my colleagues today on the question of what to do about Iraq. Over and over, there is this clarion call for more time: more time for inspectors to do their work; more time to enlist more allies; more time for Saddam Hussein to comply.

   With all due respect, I ask them: How much is enough? We have already been at this for 12 years, 12 years since the end of the Persian Gulf war. Do we need 12 more years? One more year?

   I would like to flip the question on my colleagues and ask: How much time do we have? Every minute we wait, Saddam Hussein's efforts to acquire weapons of mass destruction and to share them continue. Every minute we wait, the surviving al-Qaida terrorists plot their next attack. We fear it may be a weapon of mass destruction, particularly chemical and biological attack.

   Sooner or later, either here or somewhere else in the world, we will run out of time. We ran out of time in New York, Pennsylvania, and the Pentagon on September 11. Brave sailors on the USS Cole ran out of time. Our two embassies in Africa ran out of time in 1998. Over 200 innocent victims, mostly Australians, ran out of time in a Bali, Indonesia, nightclub.

   How many more attacks must we absorb before we realize that time is not on our side? Where will the next attack be? Will it be against a soft target? Certainly the soft targets are the ones the terrorists say they want to attack. Will it be St. Louis, Kansas City, San Francisco, New York, or someplace in New Hampshire or someplace in South Carolina?

   What will it be the next time? More airplanes flown into buildings? Probably not. Truck bombs against sports stadiums? Suicide bombers in crowds? More likely a toxin released in a subway or a skyscraper or at a large public event.

   Right now there are people who are sworn enemies of this Nation plotting the next attack. We know their intentions and, unfortunately, we know their capabilities. What we do not know is their next method of attack, although they have a track record of intentional unpredictability.

   Will they get their next weapon from Iraq? After 12 years of cat and mouse or rope-a-dope--whatever one wants to call it--we want to call Saddam Hussein's strategy of delay and deception unacceptable.

   We cannot wait much longer. We already know too well the true nature of the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq. He has failed to live up to his obligations under the 1991 cease-fire after the gulf war. Still, some friends on the other side of the aisle plead for more time. I cannot understand why anyone would plead for more time for Saddam Hussein, a man who has been in clear breach of U.N. obligations since 1992.

   Specifically, Iraq has been in material breach of U.N. Resolution 687 which was passed in the spring of 1991. That resolution called upon Iraq to ``unconditionally accept'' the destruction, removal or rendering harmless ``under international supervision'' of all ``chemical and biological weapons and all stocks of agents and all related subsystems and components of all research, development, support and manufacturing facilities.''

   Some may be unable to understand that Iraq has been in material breach of the U.N. obligation since 1991. Sadly, this

   is nothing new. This latest round under U.N. Resolution 1441 was Saddam's last chance to get back into compliance.

   Dr. Hans Blix reported to the U.N. Security Council on Monday that in large part, Saddam Hussein has failed to get back into compliance. Even the Washington Post editorialized that it is an ``indisputable truth'' that ``Iraq is in material breach'' of 1441. If Iraq is not complying, then it must be lying.

   Iraq has not only failed to disarm, it has worked to obstruct and evade international supervision. There are reports Saddam Hussein has tried to infiltrate the U.N. teams; that Iraq has threatened its scientists with death if they cooperate with U.N. inspectors; that Iraqi security agents have posed as scientists to thwart the inspectors' work. Clearly, Iraq is in violation of 1441 for having failed to comprehensively account for missing weapons of mass destruction.

   Secretary Colin Powell had it right when he said it makes no sense for the inspectors to stumble around in the dark looking for evidence of noncompliance. It is instead Saddam Hussein's legal obligation to turn the lights on and turn over the goods.

   In addition, Saddam Hussein continues to violate U.N. resolutions by firing at coalition aircraft. He refused U.N. inspectors' request for aerial surveillance, and yet some still plead for more time.

   We have drawn so many lines in the sand that we are running out of desert, we are running out of sand in which to draw lines.

   The American people will not forgive us if another attack comes when we dither with procedures and process in the corridors of the United Nations. What do we say to the victims then? What words of comfort could we possibly give to widows or children who have lost their parents? Can we say: I am sorry, but we had to enlist the support of the French before we could act? What solace would that provide a family mourning a loved one lost forever?

   What about our military troops ordered into harm's way? Every moment of delay allows Saddam Hussein to ready himself for battle, and the more ready he is will quickly translate into higher casualties among U.S. and allied forces.

   Time, regrettably, is not on our side. We know what we have to know to act. Indeed, I believe we would be failing our sworn obligation to defend this Nation if we fail to act in light of all we know about the threats we face in Iraq.

   For all of my colleagues who are still asking for more time, I plead with them to read the key findings about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction efforts taken directly from the CIA's unclassified Web site. It was reported there last fall.

   We know from U.S. and British intelligence reports that have been made public that since 1991, Iraq has repeatedly been caught redhanded lying about the extent of its missile and weapons of mass destruction programs.

   With the defection of Saddam's son-in-law, Hussein al-Kamel, in 1991, as head of the Iraq WMD program, he revealed the extent of the continued illegal operations in the face of sanctions and prohibitions. Baghdad illegally retained proscribed al-Hussein missiles and launchers. It constructed a new test engine for the development of missiles capable of threatening much of the region. And it pursued illegal programs to procure materials for illegal development of longer-range missiles. We know that if Iraq acquires

   sufficient weapons grade material, it could

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   Iraq has recalled specialists to work on its nuclear programs. All key aspects of Iraq's biological warfare program are still active, and most elements are larger and more advanced than before the gulf war. Iraq has begun renewed production of chemical warfare. Iraq has mobile laboratories for military use, corroborating reports about the mobile production of biological weapons. Dr. Blix has corroborated much of U.S. and British intelligence citing unresolved disarmament issues and complaining Iraq's cooperation is not active and should not be a game of catch-as-catch-can.

   Mr. President, clearly, Iraq is in material breach of its international obligations, and that should serve as a sufficient trigger for forced disarmament by the international community led by the U.S. and its willing allies at the appropriate time.

   After 12 years of consistent evasion, I cannot foresee any circumstance in which the Iraqi regime would now change its stripes. Deception is a reflex of Saddam Hussein's government, and it will persist until the regime is gone.

   Iraq has had 12 years worth of opportunity to avoid war. And at every turn, it has chosen a course of action that is delivering us again toward hostilities.

   I believe that at this point, the only way truly to disarm Iraq is by force.

   If France does not want to go along, obviously, that is no excuse for inaction. Multilateralism should not stall us. We took oaths as Members of this body to defend this Nation against all enemies, foreign and domestic, not on the condition that the United Nations and France agree.

   President Bush is well within his duty and obligation to defend this Nation by the use of force against Iraq at any time now. The Risks before this Nation and the world demand that he be ready and willing to use military force, with or without universal international support.

   This is a moment of truth for our longtime allies of France and Germany. By their action or inaction, will they strengthen or weaken the international laws that protect all our nations and citizens?

   Obviously, it is better to have international support than to not have it. But as Colin Powell said, multilaterialism should never be an excuse for inaction.

   When I took the oath as a U.S. Senator, I did not swear to defend this Nation against all enemies foreign and domestic--only if the United Nations voted its approval.

   I note the remarks of the senior Senator from Delaware yesterday who lamented that never in his career had he heard such disapproval from so many of our allies.

   I too am saddened by this situation. I genuinely wish it were not so.

   But I disagree with my colleague in assuming that the root cause of our disagreement lies in a faulty U.S. position.

   Why is it that so many of my colleagues prefer the judgment of our European allies to that of our own best experts and analysts?

   I think there is very little in the historical track record of many of our old European allies that inspires confidence in their ability to identify and deal with threats.

   In particular, I find little in France's history to envy with regard to identifying and standing up to threats.

   Frankly, I would be worried about our course of action if the French were on board in full. They have a great interest in oil. Thirty percent of the oil out of Iraq goes to a French oil company. That is not grounds to trust them.

   It reminds me of when one of my hometown newspapers, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, editorialized in favor of something I had done. I immediately told my staff that I must have taken an incorrect position on the issue.

   I have often found during my career that the right thing is often in direct opposition to the professional stone-throwers and nay-sayers.

   But in all seriousness, in contrast to many of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, I believe the root cause of the disagreement between some of our old European allies and the United States lies within more within the realm of political and naked economic interests than with matters of national security.

   The irony of the current situation is that American unilateralism may be the last best hope of old Europe, the Middle East and the United Nations--as it has been so many times over the last few decades.

   Our President is on the right course. It is not the easy path. But it is the right one. And he deserves the support of this body and the American people.

   I yield the floor. Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, President Bush last night warned the American people to brace for war with Iraq. In his State of the Union Address, he vowed that if Saddam Hussein does not disarm, the United States will ``lead a coalition'' to disarm him.

   Although the President stopped short of a declaration of war, his message was clear: In his view, Saddam Hussein constitutes an imminent danger to peace and security in the world, and the United States is prepared to wage war, with or without the support of the United Nations, to remove him from power. The chain of events that President Bush set into motion last year when he inducted Iraq into what he called the ``axis of evil'' appears on the verge of spilling over into battle and bloodshed.

   The President's remarks come amid a firestorm of protest from some of our closest allies in Europe and the Middle East over the apparent willingness of the United States to ride roughshod over the United Nations and dictate to the rest of the world the terms of Iraq's disarmament. The President in his State of the Union speech once again made clear that Iraq will be dealt with on his timetable, at his hands, according to his agenda.

   Mr. President, I am fully cognizant of the danger presented by the possibility of chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons in the hands of a ruthless dictator like Saddam Hussein. I am fully cognizant of, and frustrated by, the fact that Iraq has consistently flouted the United Nations mandates to disarm, and has apparently shown only token cooperation with the current inspection regime. Iraq has much to answer for, and the President is correct in demanding that Iraq respond to the United Nations.

   What concerns me greatly, however, is that this President appears to place himself above the international mandates of the United Nations. He has turned a deaf ear to the concerns of other nations and has vowed that the United States will lead an assault on Iraq regardless of the judgment of the United Nations. President Bush has

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   The President in his address alluded to tantalizing evidence that Saddam Hussein is in collusion with al-Qaida and that Iraq possesses weapons of mass destruction which it is hiding from the United Nations weapons inspectors. But the President has yet to present that evidence to the public or to demonstrate why it constitutes an immediate cause for war. If the evidence is as compelling as the President indicates it will be, surely the member states of the United Nations will close ranks behind the United States and demand the forcible disarmament of Iraq.

   The President also set what appears to be a new deadline for the United Nations. On February 5, he said, the United States will ask the U.N. Security Council to convene to hear evidence of Iraq's illegal weapons programs and its links to terrorist groups. I look forward to learning the details of that meeting. I wonder why the President is holding back for another week if he has such information today, and perhaps has had it for some time. I am confident that the U.N. weapons inspectors would welcome such evidence, not next week but today, so that they could do their jobs more effectively. I wonder why the Senate has not been given this evidence. I wonder why the American people, who are being asked to send their sons and daughters, mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters into the battle zone, have not been made privy to this important evidence.

   Perhaps the answer lies in the followup comment by the President, when he said: ``We will consult, but let there by no misunderstanding. If Saddam Hussein does not fully disarm for the safety of our people, and for the peace of the world, we will lead a coalition to disarm him.'' Despite all his comments to the contrary, it appears that the President has predetermined that war with Iraq is the only recourse left.

   If war is the answer, the support of the international community is essential. I believe that it would be a grave mistake for the United States to preempt the work of the United Nations weapons inspectors and initiate an invasion of Iraq without first seeking the express support of the Security Council. The United States is already seen by many as an aggressor in the Middle East. Speculation is rife in Europe that the United States is pressing to invade Iraq to give the U.S. control of the Iraqi oil fields. America's reputation in the court of world opinion is in tatters.

   Unfortunately, the President's State of the Union speech did little to allay the worries of the American people or the international community. The President signaled to the world that America is ready for war with Iraq, but he did not explain why Iraq suddenly presents such ``a serious and mounting threat'' to our country, our friends, and our allies that war is the only option. How is it that the threat from Iraq is more serious than the threat from North Korea? How is it that the threat from Iraq appears to have eclipsed the threat from al-Qaida to our own country and the threat from other terrorist organizations?

   Nor did the President attempt to prepare the American people for the possible consequences of war with Iraq--the terrible toll on the lives on innocent Iraqis, the potential for hundreds or thousands of battlefield casualties of American service men and women, the sharply increased threat of terrorist attacks on America and its allies. The President promised that the overthrow of Saddam Hussein would liberate the people of Iraq,

   but he made no mention of what the American people could expect from a postwar Iraq. The President made no mention of the burden the United States would have to bear to ensure that a postwar Iraq did not devolve into chaos.

   In his State of the Union Address last year, the President declared a global war on terror, and he called on all nations of the world to come together to combat the curse of terrorism. In his speech last night, the global war on terror got remarkably short shrift. ``We are working closely with other nations,'' the President said. ``We have the terrorists on the run.''

   Unfortunately, having terrorists on the run means that terrorists have escaped our dragnet and, according to intelligence assessments, are actively plotting new attacks on the United States and its allies. We still do not know the fate of Osama bin Laden. We may have him on the run, but we also fear that he continues to pose a real and imminent threat to the United States. And unlike Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden has demonstrated his willingness to attack American citizens at home and American interests abroad.

   But instead of rallying the international community to the continued need to cooperate in fighting global terrorism, the President's policies and the President's rhetoric are polarizing the world.

   Mr. President, I believe the Senate has a duty to speak to the issue of war with Iraq, and I believe that the United States has a duty under international law to work within the structure of the United Nations charter. If we indict Saddam Hussein on the grounds that he has failed to disarm in accordance with the United Nations resolutions, how then can we turn around and act against him without United Nations support? What signal does the United States send to the world regarding respect for international law? The United Nations is acting responsibly. Iraq, if not fully cooperating, is at least straitjacketed. America's allies are calling on us to give the inspectors time to do their work. This is not the time for precipitous action on the part of the United States.

   For these reasons, I am today introducing a resolution urging that the U.N. weapons inspectors be given sufficient time to complete their work and calling for the President to seek a United Nations resolution specifically authorizing the use of force before initiating any offensive military operation against Iraq.

   Now, it may come to be that war is the only way to subdue the malevolence of Saddam Hussein. But that is not a decision for the United States to make unilaterally. President Bush, in November, galvanized the United Nations to act on the issue of Iraq. For that, the President is to be commended. Now he must follow through on his pledge to work with the United Nations. The United Nations has demonstrated in the past 2 months that it is willing to act responsibly and vigorously in addressing the issue of Iraq's disarmament. No one could accuse chief weapons inspector Hans Blix of sugar-coating his interim report to the U.N. Security Council on January 27. He made clear that Iraq is not adequately cooperating on matters of substance. He made clear his frustration with Iraq. But he did not slam the door on the possibility of disarming Iraq without resorting to war.

   As long as that door remains open even a crack, as long as Iraq is not actively threatening its neighbors or the United States, as long as the United Nations can maintain a stranglehold on Saddam Hussein's ambitions, I believe that we have a duty to the American people to strive to find an alternative to war. If war it must be, then it should be a

   coordinated undertaking authorized by Congress and sanctioned by the member states of the United Nations--not a preemptive strike initiated by the President of the United States.

   Mr. President, the consequences of war are incalculable. Before we take such a momentous step, before we place the lives of American military personnel and innocent civilians in harm's way, we should stop to reflect on the possible consequences, and we should redouble our efforts to find a peaceful solution to the disarmament of Iraq. If war is the only recourse, it must be a war endorsed and fully supported by the United Nations.

   Mr. President, if it must be war, we may be lucky. I hope we will be. But we may not be lucky. I think of the words of Croesus, when he said to Cyrus the Great of Persia:

   There is a wheel on which the affairs of men revolve and its movement forbids the same man to be always fortunate.

   Mr. President, I shall have more to say as the days come and go on this matter that is so vital to the American people

   and to their futures and to the futures of our children and grandchildren and their children.

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   I yield the floor.

   The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.

   Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I believe I have time.

   The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has 20 minutes.

   Mr. KENNEDY. I thank the Chair.

   Mr. President, I thank my friend from West Virginia for his eloquence once again this afternoon. When the history of our time is written, there will be many important chapters on the contributions the Senator from West Virginia has made, certainly for his State, but I also think there will be an important chapter that will be written about his contributions to our Constitution as the principal guardian of the Constitution in the Senate. He has done this on so many occasions. I have admired him so much for that effort and the extraordinary insight he has brought to all of us as a student of history.

   All of us will remember very clearly the debates which were led by the Senator from West Virginia some 3 months ago on the issues of war and peace, and now once again, as we are coming to the most significant time, and that is the decision-making that will be made at the United Nations about whether we will continue with a course of inspections and whether we will try and galvanize the world community behind a common purpose, or whether we will go it alone. The Senator reminds us of the dangers of going it alone, of the unforeseen challenges we will be facing, and draws attention to the importance that this is a matter that is debated and discussed in the Senate; that the people in West Virginia, like the people in my own State, are eager to have more knowledge, more awareness, more understanding as to exactly where we are going and the circumstances of that commitment.

   I thank the Senator from West Virginia so much for the thoughtful resolution which I am proud to cosponsor and for the comment he has made, which is that we will be back here again to talk about this issue of war and peace.

   As he has said on many occasions, there is no vote that is more important than a Senator's vote on war and peace. There is no issue more important that we address in the Senate. The Senator reminds us of that very solemn obligation and responsibility we have on that issue and has, in his resolution, found ways of giving expression to the concerns of many of our fellow citizens.

   I again thank him for all of the work he has done. I urge him to continue to lead this body to a better understanding of exactly what policy we are undertaking, what the risks are, and the challenges we face with the real prospects of a war which may be initiated by the United States, in which the United States may be effectively going it alone with perhaps one or two of our allies. I thank him so much for his attention and focus on this issue.

   Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, will the distinguished Senator yield?

   Mr. KENNEDY. I will be glad to yield.

   Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I thank the very able Senator for his thoughtful and gracious remarks. I thank him also for his cosponsorship of the sense-of-the-Senate resolution which I have just submitted. I thank him for his contributions to that resolution.

   It is my understanding he will be submitting a resolution. We have discussed that as well, and I hope he will add my name to his resolution. He can be sure that, the Lord willing, I will be speaking on this matter from time to time, and I know that he will join me, as I hope others in this Senate will join us. I think it is time for the American people to hear more

   from the Senate. I do not think they have heard enough from the Senate on this matter that is so vital to them, to their loved ones, to their fortunes, and to their futures.

   As far as the Lord enables me to do so, I intend to have more to say on this subject. I thank the Senator. I know he will have more to say. Again, I thank him for his remarks and for his cosponsorship of the resolution.

   Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, may I be reminded when I have 3 minutes remaining.

   The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair will so inform the Senator.

   Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, 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-Qaida 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 3 months, al-Qaida 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 postwar Iraq look like? Who will govern? How long will our troops need to stay? How many will need to stay?

   What will be the impact on the war against terrorism? Will we be increasing support for al-Qaida?

   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, the crisis with North Korea, and now 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 of 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.

   In light of the changed circumstances since the previous votes by Congress, I am submitting another resolution supporting the inspection process and requiring the President to obtain approval from the 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

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   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-Qaida 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-Qaida and wage it effectively.

   In the last 4 months there have been deadly new al-Qaida 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 No. 1, 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-Qaida.

   But the administration has never presented any of this ``bulletproof'' evidence. Most regional experts believe it is highly unlikely that fundamentalist al-Qaida 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-Qaida 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.

   In the Armed Services Committee, we heard testimony from General Hoar and others about the dangers to our troops of urban guerilla warfare.

   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 21st century.

   The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has 3 minutes remaining.

   Mr. KENNEDY. The debate giving the President authority to use force against Iraq occurred over 3 months ago. Since then, circumstances have changed so significantly that Congress

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   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.

   Mr. McCAIN. I ask that I be recognized for up to 20 minutes.

   Mrs. FEINSTEIN. I ask for a point of clarification. I was waiting in the queue. I have no objection to the Senator from Arizona going first. I ask unanimous consent that directly following Senator McCain, I be granted a privilege of the floor for 20 minutes.

   The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

   The Senator from Arizona.

   MR. McCAIN. Mr. President, over 3 months ago, I worked with Senators LIEBERMAN, WARNER, and BAYH to manage the resolution authorizing the use of military force against Iraq on the floor of the Senate. Over the course of 8 days, we held a thorough, comprehensive, and honorable debate that allowed all sides to express their views quite thoroughly. Seventy-seven Senators then voted to authorize the President to use our Armed Forces to ``defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq'' and ``enforce all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq.''

   The resolution, which now has the force of law, was entitled the ``Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002.'' One provision stated, ``Consistent with ..... the War Powers Resolution, the Congress declares that this section is intended to constitute specific statutory authorization within the meaning of section 5(b) of the War Powers Resolution.'' Congress has spoken, and its message could not be clearer.

   The Senator from Massachusetts spoke repeatedly and at length over the course of the Congressional debate on Iraq. He spoke eloquently and passionately, in the great tradition of the Senate. At the end of the day, his views did not prevail, but he made an important contribution to the debate.

   That debate is over. After a months-long period in which the Bush administration went to the Security Council--as the Senator called for last fall, secured a new Council resolution demanding Iraqi compliance with it s disarmament obligations--as the Senator called for last fall, and pursued patient diplomacy while educating the American public about the threat Iraq poses to our interests--as the Senator called for last fall, I agree with him that ``much has changed in the many months since Congress last debated war with Iraq.''

   What has changed is that the Administration has pursued the careful diplomacy the Senator had urged on it and has refrained from using force unilaterally against Iraq. The President has worked to make the case for Iraqi disarmament to America and the world. The administration was able to unite the Security Council behind our demand that Iraq disarm or be disarmed. And the administration has worked diligently to assemble a coalition that will stand with us in the event military action is necessary.

   Iraq has provided more evidence of its intentions, and its defiance, by its failure to provide anything resembling an honest declaration of its arsenal of banned weaponry, and its failure to cooperate substantively with the U.N. inspectors, as Hans Blix has stated. By its own actions, Iraq has placed itself before the world in material breach of the Security Council resolution the Senator from Massachusetts demanded the administration seek, and honor, in the congressional debate last fall. I agree with the Senator, much has changed.

   As the President said last night, ``The dictator of Iraq is not disarming. To the contrary, he is deceiving.'' The price of his deception, if allowed to continue unchecked, could have catastrophic consequences for the United States which none of us, no matter how we

   voted on the Iraq resolution, could ever countenance.

   The Senator from Massachusetts apparently believes we should revoke the President's authority as Commander in Chief to order our Armed Forces to defend American national security against the threat posed by Iraq, as enshrined in the Constitution and authorized in law by Congress, unless and until there is clear evidence of an imminent Iraqi threat of attack on the United States. But in the world we live in, there is no such thing as knowledge of imminence of attack. Had we known what was to happen to our country you September 11, 2001, there is no American leader who would not have acted to prevent it.

   Every one of us in this body had contemplated what could have happened had the September 11 terrorists employed weapons of mass destruction. We cannot abide a world in which outlaw regimes deeply hostile to American are free to develop weapons which, in the hands of dictators and terrorists, would be used against us. As long as those dictators reign, and as long as terrorists plot to strike us, the threat can be understood to be imminent, because we don't know when the next attack will happen--and as long as we don't act we can say with certainty that there will be another attack.

   Speaking of the nexus between rogue states with deadly arsenals and the terrorists with whom they conspire, the President said, ``If this threat is permitted to fully and suddenly emerge, all actions, all words, and all recriminations would come too late. Trusting in the sanity and restraint of Saddam Hussein is not a strategy, and it is not an option.''

   While I respect my colleague's differences with the administration and with a substantial majority of the Congress on the matter of Iraq, I believe the case for action to disarm Saddam Hussein has only become more compelling since Congress debated the authorization to use force against Iraq last fall.

   When I heard earlier today--as the word gets out around here--that the Senator from Massachusetts might come to the floor and propose another resolution to be debated, I must say I was of two minds. I thought this would be another marvelous opportunity to debate this amendment, this entire situation, because in the intervening months, as I have stated, Saddam Hussein has proven he is not in compliance not only with the Security Council resolutions but going all the way back to 1991 when he was required, according to Security Council Resolution 687, to comply within 15 days and has not. He has violated some 12 or 13 Security Council resolutions. I thought this would be a great opportunity because there is no doubt in my mind we would prevail again if a vote were held.

   I also, on the other side of the coin, believe if we start a debate all over again that lasts for another week or 2 weeks, or whatever it is, surely we would be plowing the same ground. But also, would we be sending a signal that the American people are not united? Would the outcome of the vote be basically the same? Would Senator Lieberman or Senator Bayh decide to

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   Another thing about this terrible and difficult decision the President may have to make--which is the most difficult that any President of the United States is faced with, the dispatch of young Americans into harm's way--the President knows full well that even though we will win an overwhelming victory, young Americans will lose their lives.

   I believe that conflict will be short. I believe that in 1991 when I debated this same situation where we contemplated previously the subject of military action against Iraq, colleagues on the other side of the aisle, including Senators who will speak and have spoken in opposition, said: It will be another Vietnam; the body bags will be coming back; we should not do this; this is terrible; let's delay; let's give peace a chance.

   The conflict was short. We freed the nation of Kuwait, and for a period of time we had peace in the Middle East without significant threats to the United States national security. Now we have to finish the job, perhaps.

   I say two things. One, I regret and grieve the loss of any American lives that might occur as a result of this military action.

   But our interests are threatened, as the President said last night.

   I also want to say a word about post-Saddam Iraq, since that has been referred to continuously by those who oppose any military action under any circumstances.

   The people of Iraq are subjected to one of the most brutal, repressive, God-awful regimes in the world today. Last week's New York Times told stories of warehouses where people were hung from hooks, of rape, of torture, of murder. Claire Shipman did an interview with one of Saddam Hussein's previous mistresses. He derived some kind of pleasure watching films of people being tortured.

   These are bad people, a bad regime that has killed and oppressed its own people; a complete and total police state. Where are the advocates for human rights?

   I promise you there are many of us, at the time of the fall of Saddam Hussein, who will devote American effort and treasure to the construction of a democratic, freely elected, free society in Iraq, and give those people a chance to enjoy the human rights that it is our fundamental belief is the endowment of all men and women.

   As far as the expense is concerned, I am sure any new Iraqi Government could cover those expenses. But shouldn't we give those people an opportunity to enjoy their God-given rights rather than continue under the dictatorship of this brutal, mad dictator? He is the only one I know of who has used weapons of mass destruction on his own citizens.

   Yes, I will admit, if he wasn't constructing these weapons of mass destruction, and his relentless pursuit of them, we probably wouldn't do anything about it. But this is an interesting nexus of our national interests and our national values. Our values are that all men and women are created with certain inalienable rights. Our interests are threatened by the certain knowledge that, sooner or later, Saddam Hussein would acquire these weapons and use them. There has been no evidence that would indicate the contrary.

   I sort of regret we are coming to the floor to begin a debate that may last for some days, whether the Senator from Massachusetts withdraws his resolution or not. I hope not. I hope the Senator from Massachusetts will recognize that time was over 3 months ago, and the process moved on, a process of constant consultation with the American people, and with the United Nations Security Council, and a speech that I think was remarkably eloquent last night to the American people by the President of the United States.

   But I want to say I believe some time from now we will be pleased as Americans that we placed this responsibility in the hands of the President of the United States; that he acted with maturity; that he acted with great and sound judgment, and the world some time from now will be a far better place--not only for Americans but also for Iraqi citizens.

   I yield the remainder of my time and I yield the floor.

   The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. COLLINS) The Senator from California.

   Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Madam President, I thank the distinguished Senator from Arizona for his comments. He certainly is one who does know about war, and I believe he also believes that war should be a last resort.

   I also thank the distinguished Senators from West Virginia and from Massachusetts for introducing this legislation which I have decided to be a cosponsor. Because of my support for the resolution which gave the President authorization for use of force, I felt I probably should come to the floor and explain my rationale for supporting the resolution offered by the Senator from West Virginia.

   Essentially, Hans Blix's report Monday to the Security Council made it clear that, although there has been progress, Iraq is not fully living up to its obligations, nor is it fully cooperating. Then the President, in last night's State of the Union Message, made clear, I think, some outstanding questions.

   The first question is: What has Iraq done with 500 tons of Sarin, mustard gas precursor chemicals, and VX nerve agents? That tonnage is missing. It has not been declared. It has not been revealed or has not been found.

   The second question is: What has really happened to the 8,500 liters of anthrax which Iraq has stated it unilaterally destroyed in the summer of 1991? But it cannot document that.

   And third, what of the 650 kilograms of bacterial growth media? Those are critical items.

   These are key and serious issues the answers to which clearly provide the evidence as to whether Iraq possesses chemical and biological weapons.

   The fourth item is the U-2 plane. The United Nations, as we all know, has access to a U-2 plane to gather intelligence. However, Iraq has refused to provide it safe overflight. This remains another issue of major non-cooperation.

   So the administration is correct in saying that Iraq needs to be immediately forthcoming and immediately cooperative with the inspectors. These issues need to be resolved. These are mega issues from anyone's point of view.

   As long as the inspectors believe there is sufficient access and as long as Iraq has said, specifically Tariq Aziz, that Iraq will even offer greater cooperation, I would say there ought to be a period of time where Iraq provides to the world and to the inspectors, the answers to these questions. I think it is vital.

   If Iraq is found to pose an imminent threat to the United States, then clearly we have to take action--with others I hope, if we can. But right now that is not the case. If, indeed, after consultations with the Security Council, the administration has clear evidence that Iraq is continuing an illegal program to produce chemical and biological weapons, or nuclear weapons, or possesses these weapons, the time has really come to make it public.

   What the President did, in my view, was present very clearly, not only to the Congress of the United States but to the entire world, significant questions that need to be immediately addressed. Iraq must, in fact, step up to the plate.

   The reason I believe this resolution--which essentially asks for time for inspections to continue, essentially urges a second vote at the Security Council--is right is because I believe this situation must stand on its own. The degree of threat and the degree of violation must be separately evaluated. But it is also part of a much bigger scenario and I want to spend time discussing that scenario here today.

   I believe America's national security policy stands at a crossroads. I believe in the wake of 9/11, last year was fundamental in terms of the administration's articulation of what constitutes, to my mind, a brand new approach to foreign policy by the United States. Within about 8 months last year, the administration put out three separate documents. One of them was the National Security Strategy. The second was the Nuclear Posture Review. The third was the Doctrine of Preemption as represented in the President's speech at West Point.

   Although individually each may appear innocuous, taken together these

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   First, the National Security Strategy quite pointedly moves the United States away from the concept of deterrence and, to a great extent, substitutes preemption in its place.

   Secondly, the administration's Nuclear Posture Review is extraordinarily provocative and dangerous. It blurs the line between the use of conventional and nuclear weapons. It suggests that certain events might compel the United States to use nuclear weapons first, even against non-nuclear states. And it calls for the development of a new generation of United States nuclear warheads, including ``mini-nukes.''

   As was well documented in the press last year, the Review also discusses contingencies in which nuclear weapons might be used, including--and I quote--``a North Korean attack on South Korea or a military confrontation over the status of Taiwan'' in which our adversaries do not necessarily use nuclear weapons first.

   The Review also addresses contingencies in which the United States might use nuclear weapons not in retaliation to a nuclear strike on the United States but to destroy enemy stocks of chemical or biological arms.

   Karl Rove was specifically asked that question on television on Sunday, and he did not answer the question.

   This Review also states that in setting requirements for nuclear strike capabilities, distinctions can be made among immediate, potential or unexpected contingencies, and that North Korea, Iraq, Iran, Syria and Libya are among the countries that could be involved in these immediate, potential or unexpected contingencies.

   That is what makes what is being suggested here in Iraq--if you look at it, in its total expression--so troubling.

   The fact of the matter is that several of the nations cited in the Nuclear Posture Review's contingencies lack nuclear weapons. Using nuclear weapons against them would be constitute first use. Under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, the United States has agreed not to use nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear state unless that country attacks the United States ``in alliance with a nuclear weapons state.''

   And finally, the doctrine of Preemption--which we may be seeing for the time with Iraq--asserts a unilateral right for the United States to preempt a threat against our Nation's security.

   The doctrine says:

   [T]he United States can no longer solely rely on a reactive posture as we have in the past. ..... We cannot let our enemies strike first.

   Further on:

   The greater the threat, the greater the risk of inaction--and the more compelling the case for taking anticipatory action to defend ourselves.

   Taken at face value, this means the United States holds for itself the right to strike against another sovereign nation--wage war, if you will--even in the absence of a clear and present danger, an immediate threat or provocative action, but based solely on the perception of a sufficient threat.

   I deeply believe the administration's course in these areas stands in contrast to the successful bipartisan tradition of supporting a world ordered by law, with capable international institutions and reciprocal restraints on action.

   But the administration's emphasis on unilateral action, its dismissal of international law, treaties, and institutions, and its apparent focus on the military, especially as documented in the National Security Strategy, the doctrine of Preemption and the Nuclear Posture Review, have created widespread resentment in the international community.

   I believe that these documents are the clearest statements

   in writing of the administration's long-term intentions, and I find them questionable and seriously disturbing.

   I must also tell you that Secretary Powell essentially said to me: Well, the Nuclear Posture Review really isn't operative. But, nonetheless, that is a doctrine that was released. It is serious in its ramifications. And the way this relates to Iraq is Iraq may be the first test case. If there are chemical and biological weapons--and there very well might be--does this then justify the use of a nuclear weapon to destroy them? The Nuclear Posture Review puts this on the table as an option. I think we need to know.

   So I ask these questions because I think they must be asked. And this is as good a time as any.

   If we are going to depend on the might of the sword to right wrongs, and in so doing risk committing our own wrongs, how are we better off?

   Coalitions, alliances, treaties, peacekeepers, inspection regimes--all can and have been successful instruments in deterring adversaries, safeguarding American lives and U.S. security interests, and in resolving disputes, conflicts, and crises.

   So, Madam President, I remind this body that since World War II, there has been strong bipartisan support of a United States which has embraced international cooperation, not out of vulnerability or weakness but from a position of strength.

   House Joint Resolution 114, which I supported, and which authorizes the use of force against Iraq, specifically calls for a Presidential determination, that--and I quote--``reliance by the United States on further diplomatic or other peaceful means alone either will not adequately protect the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq or is not likely to lead to enforcement of all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq.''

   That finding, that determination, required by our resolution--for which 77 of us voted--has not yet been made. The evidence has not yet been laid out. The conclusions have not yet been drawn.

   What happened to the missing anthrax, the missing botulinum toxin, the missing VX nerve agent, the missing precursor chemicals, has not yet been determined. So that is why I come to the floor to say that it is critical that Iraq fully cooperate. It is critical that the inspectors be allowed to continue.

   If Iraq does not come clean, if Iraq does not submit the documentation as to the disposition of these chemicals and biological agents, then a legitimate conclusion can be drawn.

   But the reason I believe arms inspections must be given a chance to succeed and must continue is that I believe Iraq is just one small part of a larger sea-change in U.S. national security policy. It is a small part of the doctrine of Preemption, in which we move against a perceived or real threat. It is a small part of the Nuclear Posture Review, which says the United States would countenance the use of nuclear weapons against hard and deeply buried targets or biological or chemical weapons.

   So I believe that restraint is the proper course. It means that diplomacy is a prudent course, and it means that if international law--if international bodies are to have any relevance in this new millennium--then the Security Council itself must respond.

   It is my deep belief that in the long run a foreign policy oriented toward cooperation and consultation will prove to be a more effective guarantor of U.S. national security than one of unilateral impulse and confrontation.

   Let us remember that we are currently engaged in a war on terror. It is a war that, if we are to win it, will require the cooperation of our friends and allies.

   There is no doubt in my mind that if the United States acts precipitously against Iraq, Taliban and al-Qaida fighters in the hinterland of Afghanistan are gathering today and are prepared to strike against our forces there and against the government of Hamid Karzai.

   And let us recall that beyond Iraq, there are a host of other challenges--the situation in the Middle East, the nuclear crisis on the Korean peninsula--that require international cooperation and action. So I am deeply concerned that if we are not careful in our approach to Iraq, if we do not present a just case, if we do not build an international coalition, we may well precipitate the very events we are trying to prevent. For example, a preemptive unilateral attack against a Muslim nation may well create a divide between the United States and the Muslim world so deep and so wide that it

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   I deeply believe that if Iraq is in possession of weapons of mass destruction, it poses a real threat to the entire international community; and there is no doubt, as the President pointed out, that Saddam Hussein is an evil dictator.

   But at this point I believe it would be a tremendous mistake for the United States to unilaterally attack Iraq, and I urge the administration to go slow, let the inspectors do their work, and build that international coalition. War should be a last resort, not a foregone conclusion.

   Madam President, I yield the floor.

   The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alaska is recognized.

END

4F) Inspectors Should Have More Time
Mr. BYRD (for himself, Mr. KENNEDY, Mr. BINGAMAN, Mrs. FEINSTEIN, Mr. INOUYE, Mr. SARBANES, and Mrs. BOXER) submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations:

   S. Res. 28

   Whereas on November 8, 2002, the United Nations Security Council adopted Resolution 1441, stating that Iraq is in ``material breach'' of its obligations under previous United Nations resolutions, and giving Iraq ``a final opportunity to comply with its disarmament obligations'' and to accept ``an enhanced inspection regime'';

   Whereas Iraq formally accepted the return of weapons inspectors under the terms of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1441 on November 13, 2002, and according to a joint statement issued January 20, 2003, by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the United Nations Monitoring and Verification Commission (UNMOVIC), and Iraq, the Government of Iraq has provided the weapons inspectors with access to all sites;

   Whereas on December 7, 2002, Iraq provided a 12,000-page declaration of past chemical, biological, and nuclear programs to the Security Council, which declaration, after preliminary review, was described by Mohamed ElBaradei, the Director General of the IAEA, as incomplete and inconclusive, but which produced no ``smoking gun'';

   Whereas, according to the joint statement made by UNMOVIC, IAEA, and Iraq on January 20, 2003, Iraq pledged to offer United Nations inspectors more help in their search for evidence of weapons of mass destruction and expressed a readiness to respond to questions raised in connection with the December 7, 2002 declaration;

   Whereas Hans Blix, Executive Chairman of UNMOVIC, reported to the United Nations Security Council on January 27, 2003, that Iraq has been cooperating with the weapons inspectors on process but has failed to demonstrate active cooperation on matters of substance;

   Whereas Dr. Blix earlier characterized the January 27, 2003, report to the Security Council as an interim update intended to mark ``the beginning of the inspection and monitoring process, not the end of it'';

   Whereas IAEA Director General ElBaradei reported to the Security Council on January 27, 2003, that his agency has found no evidence that Iraq has revived its nuclear weapons program;

   Whereas Dr. ElBaradei urged the Security Council on January 27, 2003, to allow the inspection process to ``run its natural course'' over the next few months;

   Whereas the United Nations weapons inspectors have failed to obtain evidence that would prove that Iraq is in material breach of the terms of the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1441 (2002);

   Whereas European and Arab officials are reportedly trying to persuade Saddam Hussein to leave Iraq voluntarily, and senior officials in the executive branch of the United States Government have said that they would welcome exile for Hussein;

   Whereas the emergence of a nuclear crisis in North Korea, and the contradictory responses by the United States to the situations in North Korea and Iraq, have cast doubts on the consistency and propriety of the United States doctrine of preemption, especially in the international community;

   Whereas war with Iraq to enforce United Nations Security Council Resolution 1441 (2002) should not be a unilateral decision as it is likely to have international ramifications on the worldwide supply of oil, including the possibility of widespread economic destabilization if Middle East oil supplies are interrupted;

   Whereas key members of the United Nations Security Council, including Great Britain, Germany, the Russian Federation, France, and China, have expressed their belief that the weapons inspectors need more time to continue their work and have urged the United States not to rush to a decision to invade Iraq without seeking the support of the Security Council;

   Whereas United Nations Security Resolution 1441 (2002) does not authorize the use of force but instead stipulates that the Security Council will convene immediately to consider any failure on the part of Iraq to comply with the Resolution;

   Whereas the President, in his September 12, 2002, address to the United Nations regarding Iraq's failure to comply with previous United Nations Security Council resolutions, pledged to work with the Security Council for the ``necessary resolutions'' and has stated repeatedly since that time that he has made no decision on whether to invade Iraq;

   Whereas no evidence has been presented to the Senate or the American people to link Iraq with the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States;

   Whereas there is growing concern that war with Iraq would greatly heighten the threat of terrorist attacks on United States citizens at home, including the possibility of chemical, biological, or nuclear weapon attacks;

   Whereas the terrible cost of war--in lives lost in Iraq and potentially the United States, Israel, and other nations in the Middle East and elsewhere, and in the massive drain on America's treasure--is a cost that the United States and its allies should strive to avoid if at all possible; and

   Whereas a United States-initiated war with Iraq is likely to inflame passions in the Middle East and could precipitate further conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians as well as a surge in regional terrorism: Now, therefore, be it

    Resolved, That it is the sense of the Senate that--

    (1) the United Nations weapons inspectors should be given sufficient time to carry out the inspections, and collect the data, that are necessary for a thorough assessment of the level of compliance by the Government of Iraq with United Nations Security Council Resolution 1441 (2002);

    (2) the United States and other member nations of the United Nations Security Council should work together to exhaust all peaceful and diplomatic means for disarming Iraq before launching an invasion of Iraq;

    (3) international emissaries, including European and Arab leaders, should be given adequate time to pursue strategies to persuade Saddam Hussein to leave Iraq voluntarily and avert war;

    (4) before initiating any offensive military operation in Iraq to enforce United Nations Security Council Resolution 1441 (2002), the United States should seek a specific authorization for the use of force from the United Nations Security Council;

    (5) the United States should re-engage in the Middle East peace process in an effort to end the violence between the State of Israel and the Palestinians; and

    (6) the United States should redouble its efforts to secure the United States homeland in light of the growing number of intelligence assessments highlighting the vulverability of the United States for further terrorist attacks.

4G) Opposing War With Iraq
Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, this Tuesday we heard the President of the United States in his State of the Union Address once again appeal to the American people to support sending United States troops into a preemptive war against Iraq. In support of his appeal, he did not tell us anything we have not heard before.

   A majority of the American people remain unconvinced that the United States, only 3 months after sponsoring a U.N. Security Council resolution calling on Iraq to disarm, should now, without the support of the Security Council, abandon the U.N. inspections process and launch a unilateral military invasion.

   On January 18, in my home State of Vermont, over 3,000 Vermonters gathered in front of the Vermont State House in Montpelier, in freezing weather--in fact, some of the coldest weather we have had in years--to express their opposition to a war with Iraq. It is a privilege to represent a State whose citizens have always been among the most thoughtful voices and sometimes the most outspoken voices.

   Those Vermonters were of all ages and from all walks of life. They were not alone. Hundreds of thousands of Americans, including many Vermonters, traveled to Washington to brave the subfreezing temperatures here. And there were protests in other cities and towns across the country.

   These demonstrations convey the growing recognition of many Americans that the administration is preparing to invade Iraq, despite the opposing views of many allies and irrespective of any decision by the U.N. Security Council.

   The situation in Iraq is not a simple black-and-white issue. I have said this over and over. We saw how the Reagan administration and the former Bush administration often facilitated and frequently ignored Saddam Hussein's development of weapons of mass destruction, until he extended his territorial claims to Kuwait's oil fields. We all know there is abundant evidence that Saddam Hussein is a deceitful, murderous villain. No one ignores that.

   Still, there are times in history when circumstances compel us to speak out, and this is one of those times.

   Several Senators have spoken eloquently--Senator Kerry, Senator Biden, Senator Kennedy, and others--and I associate myself with many of their remarks.

   Mr. President, the White House and Pentagon are fueling the belief that war with Iraq is inevitable. That was the President's message in the State of the Union Address, although no new evidence was offered. Many in the White House are eager, even impatient, for war to begin. They view Iraq as the first step in a fundamental reshaping of the geopolitical alignment of the Middle East. It reminds me of when I first started serving in the Senate, and the White House political thinkers at that time were obsessed with theories about falling dominos.

   I, like many here, and like many in the White House who are the most vocal advocates of a preemptive, unilateral invasion of Iraq, have been blessed with never having faced military combat.

   I take to heart the wise words of my friend, Senator CHUCK HAGEL:

   Many of those who want to rush this country into war and think it would be so quick and easy don't know anything about war. They come at it from an intellectual perspective versus having sat in jungles or foxholes and watched their friends get their heads blown off.

   These same administration officials have also studiously avoided talking about what is inevitable in any war--American lives will be lost and the lives of innocent civilians, overwhelmingly, will be lost. People will die on both sides. And they give short shrift to the risks war with Iraq poses to building broad support for peace in the Middle East and, most important, to our efforts to thwart international terrorism.

   The saber rattling in Washington--and the steady deployment of tens of thousands of U.S. troops, planes, and ships to the Persian Gulf--is causing alarm and fear both here and abroad. But world opinion, including so many of our allies, is squarely in favor of exhausting every effort to avoid war.

   The people of Vermont gave me, as a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee in the spring of 1975, the opportunity to cast a tie-breaking vote against continued funding of the Vietnam war. I recall so well how over 30 years ago, even before focus groups, mass polling, and the hyperbole of midterm elections, White House politics--joined unfortunately by both parties--not the need to protect the American people, caused the deaths of tens of thousands of people in that unnecessary war in Vietnam. I am as proud of that vote as any I have cast since--and I have cast well over 10,000 votes in this body--and I will bring Vermonters' voices to the Iraq debate today.

   It has been only 60 days since the U.N. weapons inspectors returned to Iraq. They are just reaching full capacity. I and

   others here urged President Bush to go to the United Nations and seek a resolution calling on Iraq to disarm, and I applauded the President when he did that. It was one of the finest speeches of his career, and he secured a unanimous vote in the Security Council for that resolution.

   Now, however, the White House is wrong to dismiss the inspections as having failed so soon when the chief U.N. inspector says he is expanding his team and plans to work at least into March. The British, French, and German governments have all said the U.N. should be given more time, especially as long as the Iraqis give the inspectors access throughout the country.

   This is the type of common sense that should be guiding our policy, not a knee-jerk, trigger-happy approach that alienates our friends and allies. We should work closely with the United Nations. We should remember that far more of Iraq's weapons were discovered and destroyed by the inspectors after the Gulf War than were destroyed by our troops during the Gulf War.

   I have no doubt Saddam Hussein is lying. He has lied countless times before. He is likely hiding weapons, including chemical and biological weapons. The U.N. inspectors' report leaves little doubt of that.

   The Iraqis have not explained what happened to thousands of tons of chemical weapons material, and other biological munitions they had in their possession 5 years ago. There have been discoveries of empty chemical weapons shells and documents they had not disclosed. These are serious discrepancies by a regime that is among the world's most dangerous, deceptive, and brutal.

   There may also be other evidence of Saddam Hussein's deception that the administration has not yet revealed. But the inspectors are continuing their work, and the results so far do not justify abandoning the inspections process and sending thousands of American men and women into a war costing hundreds of billions of dollars, that will cost American lives, and the lives of innocent civilians, and could trigger a wider conflict in the Middle East, while creating more enemies and terrorists over the long run.

   If Saddam Hussein is removed from power, we will all celebrate. He has terrorized the Iraqi people for decades. His security agents have sadistically tortured, even summarily executed, many thousands of people. But far more is at stake here than getting rid of Saddam Hussein. At stake is the justification for sending Americans into war absent an imminent threat to the security of the United States, the most powerful Nation on Earth.

   We have heard a lot of strong rhetoric, but we have not heard a compelling case that the use of military force is the only alternative to disarm Iraq.

   Last year, our President pointed to ``evidence'' that Iraq was developing nuclear weapons. Today, that evidence seems to be disappearing. Despite a rush to judgment by some White House officials, U.S. intelligence experts remain deeply divided on this question. The International Atomic Energy Agency says there is no evidence that Iraq has resumed its quest for nuclear weapons.

   In response, the White House claims there is proof Iraq is hiding chemical and biological weapons. That proof may well exist. If it does, the administration should immediately take it to the Security Council to help convince skeptical friends and allies and to assist the inspectors in their disarmament work.

   I remember when I was a student here in Washington at Georgetown University Law School at the time of the

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   With that proof, the world rallied around the United States.

   We have to remember how missteps can create more problems. The situation in North Korea today illustrates how a dangerous situation can quickly escalate unnecessarily. By taking options off the table, we are worse off today than we were a few months ago. After backing the United States into a corner, the White House is now discussing donations of food and fuel, an approach they ridiculed just a short time ago. We have to be more consistent.

   Today, there are no U.N. inspectors monitoring the North Korean nuclear facilities. Tensions have dramatically increased, and we have serious disagreements with our Japanese and South Korean allies. Let us not make the same mistake in Iraq that history, both decades ago and more recently, has tried to teach us.

   Saddam Hussein must be disarmed to the point that he is no longer a threat to his neighbors. U.N. resolutions must be respected and enforced. But these are matters of concern to the world, not just to the United States. We are part of the world, but we are not the whole world.

   The U.N. inspectors need time to complete their work. It is divisive and damaging for the United States, having secured a Security Council resolution, two months later to short-circuit the U.N. process in the name of enforcing that same U.N. resolution.

   To those officials in the White House and the Pentagon who would use the U.N. inspections as a mere excuse to justify unilateral military action, I say the same things as when I opposed the resolution authorizing the use of force that passed the Senate back in September: This Vermonter never has and never will give a blank check to this President or to any President to wage war.

   The next weeks and months will be decisive. Let's hope the Iraqi Government fulfills its obligations and the inspectors finish the job in a manner that gives credibility to their conclusions, whatever those conclusions may be. Let's work with the U.N. Security Council and our allies to find a way forward.

   Unlike his father a decade ago, this President has not built a broad coalition for military action. If diplomacy fails, I am confident we can win a military victory. After all, we have the most powerful military in the world. But acting unilaterally would be extremely costly. It would lead to a prolonged U.S. military occupation of Iraq, the expenditure of tens, even hundreds, of billions of dollars. It would damage our relations with key allies, and it would further inflame the anti-American extremism that is growing throughout the Muslim world, extremism that threatens us more than anything else today.

   It threatens us because even today terrorists plan their attacks within the United States, not in the Persian Gulf. We need the world to be with us. A broad-based coalition is indispensable for achieving long-term peace in the Persian Gulf and the Middle East, as well as our continuing efforts against international terrorism.

   This war is not inevitable. We should not talk or act as if it is. But if war does come, let the United States be able to say we did everything we could to try to solve this another way; that we worked in concert with the United Nations; and that the U.N. was strengthened in the process. We must be convinced that war is justified; that the sacrifice of American lives can be justified; that America taking this step of a preemptive war can be justified not only today but, in history's eyes, decades from now.

   I do not believe that threshold has yet been reached. So many of the American people do not. Our allies do not.

   I suggest the absence of a quorum.

   The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.

   The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.

   Mr. ALLARD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

   The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

   Mr. ALLARD. Mr. President, I understand we are in morning business?

   The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is correct.

4H) The Situation in Iraq
Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, as I understood the President in his State of the Union speech earlier this week, it is his intention to begin military action against Iraq sometime in the near future. That stated intention of the President causes me some grave concern, and I wanted to come to the Senate floor today and express that concern.

   Let me begin by stating the propositions with which we all agree. First, I think we all agree Saddam Hussein is a brutal despot who has terrorized his own people and has threatened his neighboring States for many years. Second, whether or not Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction in a readily usable form at this time, we must assume that given the opportunity he will obtain those weapons. Third, it is very much in our interest as a Nation, and in the interest of our allies, that Saddam Hussein be prevented from acquiring or maintaining those weapons.

   But the question before the country today is narrower than these propositions. The question before the country is whether we should cut short the inspection process that is currently underway. The U.N. inspection process is a process that we rightly insisted upon in our earlier deliberations with the Security Council. So the question is whether we should cut short that inspection process and begin a military action to remove Saddam Hussein and his regime from power.

   The President has moved aggressively to prepare this Nation for war. The total number of personnel who have been either ordered to deploy, or who have been put on alert to do so, is roughly 148,000. There are roughly 23,000 marines en route to the Persian Gulf aboard three major task forces. There are roughly 25,000 sailors and aviators attached to the various carrier battle groups and amphibious task forces that are either en route to the region, on standby, or are on surge status. These forces include some 175 aircraft of all types and over 1,000 VLS launch tubes carrying nearly 500 cruise missiles.

   So steps have been taken to prepare us militarily for war. Today, we are, simply put, on the brink of war. But while these military preparations have occurred, there has also been a parallel effort going on through the U.N. to ascertain what weapons of mass destruction Saddam Hussein holds, where those weapons are located, and what threat those weapons pose to his neighbors and to other free nations.

   We have come to a difficult decision point. The Pentagon is advising the President that military preparations are nearly complete. The President must decide whether this country should proceed militarily in the next few weeks or whether we should continue to support the efforts of U.N. inspectors to carry out the instructions that were given them by the U.N. Security Council, on which we sit.

   In my view, the President should allow the U.N. inspectors to continue their work. If they are denied access to sites they wish to inspect, then the use of military force will be justified. If they find substantial evidence of a weapons program that threatens Iraq's neighbors, then we should join with those neighbors in eliminating that threat. But up until this date, up until today, neither of these circumstances prevails. The inspectors themselves have so stated, and they have asked for additional time to complete their work.

   The decision the President makes on going to war with Iraq will be the first test of the new National Security Strategy that was issued by the White House in September of last year. In that document, the President acknowledges that the legitimacy of preemptive military action depends ``on the existence of an imminent threat.''

   Right after that statement appears in this document, however, the document speaks of ``adapting the concept of imminent threat.'' How much adaptation of that concept is wise? How much adaptation of that concept makes sense for ourselves and our allies as a precedent for the future?

   This National Security Strategy document that the administration issued in September of last year goes on to talk about our willingness as a nation to take military action to preempt emerging threats. Here the President is contemplating, in the circumstance before us today, military action not to meet a specific identified military threat but to depose a hostile government, even though no imminent military threat has been identified.

   In his State of the Union Address, the President framed the issue as being whether ``war is forced upon us.'' He stated that, ``If war is forced upon us, we will fight with the full force and might of the U.S. military--and we will prevail.'' I, and I am sure most Americans, agree with that statement. But in my view, as of this date, war has not been forced upon us. It is not credible for us to assert as a nation that war has been forced upon us.

   The U.N. inspection process proceeds. If there is evidence of an imminent threat that requires us to take preemptive military action, I have not seen

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   The more willing we are to assert the right to start a war to change the government of a sovereign state, the more we risk encouraging preemptive action by other nations against governments they wish to depose. And the less we need to identify an imminent threat before beginning a war, the more we undermine efforts to avoid unprovoked conflict in the future.

   The President was right to go to the United Nations and to insist that U.N. inspectors return to Iraq. His latest decision to send Secretary Powell to the Security Council to present evidence of the threat posed by Iraq is also proper, and I look forward to hearing what that evidence is. But unless that evidence demonstrates a threat that requires military action now, the wise course is for us to hold off on that military action and allow the U.N. inspectors to do their work.

   Mr. President, I yield the floor.

   The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Dakota.

   Mr. JOHNSON. Mr. President, I rise to share with my colleagues my very great concern over ties between Iraq's probable possession of biological and chemical weapons and the potentially catastrophic actions taken by the Reagan and Bush, Sr., administrations, including the active assistance of then ``special envoy'' and now Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. This arming of Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction by the Reagan and Bush, Sr., administrations has now been disclosed from what were previously classified documents, as reported recently by the Washington Post.

   I ask unanimous consent that the Washington Post article be printed in the RECORD.

   There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:

   U.S. Had Key Role in Iraq Buildup; Trade in Chemical Arms Allowed Despite Their Use on Iranians, Kurds

   High on the Bush administration's list of justifications for war against Iraq are President Saddam Hussein's use of chemical weapons, nuclear and biological programs, and his contacts with international terrorists. What U.S. officials rarely acknowledge is that these offenses date back to a period when Hussein was seen in Washington as a valued ally.

   Among the people instrumental in tilting U.S. policy toward Baghdad during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war was Donald H. Rumsfeld, now defense secretary, whose December 1983 meeting with Hussein as a special presidential envoy paved the way for normalization of U.S.-Iraqi relations. Declassified documents show that Rumsfeld traveled to Baghdad at a time when Iraq was using chemical weapons on an ``almost daily'' basis in defiance of international conventions.

   The story of U.S. involvement with Saddam Hussein in the years before his 1990 attack on Kuwait--which included large-scale intelligence sharing, supply of cluster bombs through a Chilean front company, and facilitating Iraq's acquisition of chemical and biological precursors--is a topical example of the underside of U.S. foreign policy. It is a world in which deals can be struck with dictators, human rights violations sometimes overlooked, and accommodations made with arms proliferators, all on the principle that the ``enemy of my enemy is my friend.'' Throughout the 1980s, Hussein's Iraq was the sworn enemy of Iran, then still in the throes of an Islamic revolution. U.S. officials saw Baghdad as a bulwark against militant Shiite extremism and the fall of pro-American states such as Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and even Jordan--a Middle East version of the ``domino theory'' in Southeast Asia. That was enough to turn Hussein into a strategic partner and for U.S. diplomats in Baghdad to routinely refer to Iraqi forces as ``the good guys,'' in contrast to the Iranians, who were depicted as ``the bad guys.''

   A review of thousands of declassified government documents and interviews with former policymakers shows that U.S. intelligence and logistical and support a crucial role in shoring up Iraqi defenses against the ``human wave'' attacks by suicidal Iranian troops. The administrations of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush authorized the sale to Iraq of numerous items that had both military and civilian applications, including poisonous chemicals and deadly biological viruses, such as anthrax and bubonic plague.

   Opinions differ among Middle East experts and former government officials about the pre-Iraqi tilt, and whether Washington could have done more to stop the flow to Baghdad of technology for building weapons of mass destruction.

   ``It was a horrible mistake then, but we have got it right now,'' says Kenneth M. Pollack, a former CIA military analyst and author of ``The Threatening Storm,'' which makes the case for war with Iraq. ``My fellow [CIA] analysts and I were warning at the time that Hussein was a very nasty character. We were constantly fighting the State Department.''

   ``Fundamentally, the policy was justified,'' argues David Newton, a former U.S. ambassador to Baghdad, who runs an anti-Hussein radio station in Prague. ``We were concerned that Iraq should not lose the war with Iran, because that would have threatened Saudi Arabia and the Gulf. Our long-term hope was that Hussein's government would become less repressive and more responsible.''

   What makes present-day Hussein different from the Hussein of the 1980s, say Middle East experts, is the mellowing of the Iranian revolution and the August 1990 invasion of Kuwait that transformed the Iraqi dictator, almost overnight, from awkward ally into mortal enemy. In addition, the United States itself has changed. As a result of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, U.S. policymakers take a much more alarmist view of the threat posed by the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

   When the Iran-Iraq war began in September 1980, with an Iraqi attack across the Shatt al Arab waterway that leads to the Persian Gulf, the United States was a bystander. The United States did not have diplomatic relations with either Baghdad or Teheran. U.S. officials had almost as little sympathy for Hussein's dictatorial brand of Arab nationalism as for the Islamic fundamentalism espoused by Iran's Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. As long as the two countries fought their way to a stalemate, nobody in Washington was disposed to intervene.

   By the summer of 1982, however, the strategic picture had changed dramatically. After its initial gains, Iraq was on the defensive, and Iranian troops had advanced to within a few miles of Basra, Iraq's second largest city. U.S. intelligence information suggested the Iranians might achieve a breakthrough on the Basra front, destabilizing Kuwait, the Gulf states, and even Saudi Arabia, thereby threatening U.S. oil supplies.

   ``You have to understand the geostrategic context, which was very different from where we are now,'' said Howard Teicher, a former National Security Council official, who worked on Iraqi policy during the Reagan administration. ``Realpolitik dictated that we act to prevent the situation from getting worse.''

   To prevent an Iraqi collapse, the Reagan administration supplied battlefield intelligence on Iranian troop buildups to the Iraqis, sometimes through third parties such as Saudi Arabia. The U.S. tilt toward Iraq was enshrined in National Security Decision Directive 114 of Nov. 26, 1983, one of the few important Reagan era foreign policy decisions that still remains classified. According to former U.S. officials, the directive stated that the United States would do ``whatever was necessary and legal'' to prevent Iraq from losing the war with Iran.

   The presidential directive was issued amid a flurry of reports that Iraqi forces were using chemical weapons in their attempts to hold back the Iranians. In principle, Washington was strongly opposed to chemical warfare, a practice outlawed by the 1925 Geneva Protocol. In practice, U.S. condemnation of Iraqi use of chemical weapons ranked relatively low on the scale of administration priorities, particularly compared with the all-important goal of preventing an Iranian victory.

   Thus, on Nov. 1, 1983, a senior State Department official, Jonathan T. Howe, told Secretary of State George P. Shultz that intelligence reports showed that Iraqi troops were resorting to ``almost daily use of CW'' against the Iranians. But the Reagan administration had already committed itself to a large-scale diplomatic and political overture to Baghdad, culminating in several visits by the president's recently appointed special envoy to the Middle East, Donald H. Rumsfeld.

   Secret talking points prepared for the first Rumsfeld visit to Baghdad enshrined some of the language from NSDD 114, including the statement that the United States would regard ``any major reversal of Iraq's fortunes as a strategic defeat for the West.'' When Rumsfeld finally met with Hussein on Dec. 20, he told the Iraqi leader that Washington was ready for a resumption of full diplomatic relations, according to a State Department report of the conversation. Iraqi leaders later described themselves as ``extremely pleased'' with the Rumsfeld visit, which had ``elevated U.S.-Iraqi relations to a new level.''

   In a September interview with CNN, Rumsfeld said he ``cautioned'' Hussein about the use of chemical weapons, a claim at odds with declassified State Department notes of his 90-minute meeting with the Iraqi leader. A Pentagon spokesman, Brian Whitman, now says that Rumsfeld raised the issue not with Hussein, but with Iraqi foreign minister Tariq Aziz. The State Department notes show that he mentioned it largely in passing as one of several matters that ``inhibited'' U.S. efforts to assist Iraq.

   Rumsfeld has also said he had ``nothing to do'' with helping Iraq in its war against Iran. Although former U.S. officials agree that Rumsfeld was not one of the architects of the Reagan administration's tilt toward Iraq--he was a private citizen when he was appointed Middle East envoy--the documents show that his visits to Baghdad led to

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   As part of its opening to Baghdad, the Reagan administration removed Iraq from the State Department terrorism list in February 1982, despite heated objections from Congress. Without such a move, Teicher says, it would have been ``impossible to take even the modest steps we were contemplating'' to channel assistance to Baghdad. Iraq--along with Syria, Libya and South Yemen--was one of four original countries on the list, which was first drawn up in 1979.

   Some former U.S. officials say that removing Iraq from the terrorism list provided an incentive to Hussein to expel the Palestinian guerrilla leader Abu Nidal from Baghdad in 1983. On the other hand, Iraq continued to play host to alleged terrorists throughout the '80s. The most notable was Abu Abbas, leader of the Palestine Liberation Front, who found refuge in Baghdad after being expelled from Tunis for masterminding the 1985 hijacking of the cruise ship Achille Lauro, which resulted in the killing of an elderly American tourist.

   While Rumsfeld was talking to Hussein and Aziz in Baghdad, Iraqi diplomats and weapons merchants were fanning out across Western capitals for a diplomatic charm offensive-cum-arms buying spree. In Washington, the key figure was the Iraqi charg d'affaires, Nizar Hamdoon, a fluent English speaker who impressed Reagan administration officials as one of the most skillful lobbyists in town.

   ``He arrived with a blue shirt and a white tie, straight out of the mafia,'' recalled Geoffrey Kemp, a Middle East specialist in the Reagan White House. ``Within six months, he was hosting suave dinner parties at his residence, which he parlayed into a formidable lobbying effort. He was particularly effective with the American Jewish community.''

   One of Hamdoon's favorite props, says Kemp, was a green Islamic scarf allegedly found on the body of an Iranian soldier. The scarf was decorated with a map of the Middle East showing a series of arrows pointing toward Jerusalem. Hamdoon used to ``parade the scarf'' to conferences and congressional hearings as proof that an Iranian victory over Iraq would result in ``Israel becoming a victim along with the Arabs.''

   According to a sworn court affidavit prepared by Teicher in 1995, the United States ``actively supported the Iraqi war effort by supplying the Iraqis with billions of dollars of credits, by providing military intelligence and advice to the Iraqis, and by closely monitoring third country arms sales to Iraq to make sure Iraq had the military weaponry required.'' Teicher said in the affidavit that former CIA director William Casey used a Chilean company, Cardoen, to supply Iraq with cluster bombs that could be used to disrupt the Iranian human wave attacks. Teicher refuses to discuss the affidavit.

   At the same time the Reagan administration was facilitating the supply of weapons and military components to Baghdad, it was attempting to cut off supplies to Iran under ``Operation Staunch.'' Those efforts were largely successful, despite the glaring anomaly of the 1986 Iran-contra scandal when the White House publicly admitted trading arms for hostages, in violation of the policy that the United States was trying to impose on the rest of the world.

   Although U.S. arms manufacturers were not as deeply involved as German or British companies in selling weaponry to Iraq, the Reagan administration effectively turned a blind eye to the export of ``dual use'' items such as chemical precursors and steel tubes that can have military and civilian applications. According to several former officials, the State and Commerce departments promoted trade in such items as a way to boost U.S. exports and acquire political leverage over Hussein.

   When United Nations weapons inspectors were allowed into Iraq after the 1991 Gulf War, they compiled long lists of chemicals, missile components, and computers from American suppliers, including such household names as Union Carbide and Honeywell, which were being used for military purposes.

   A 1994 investigation by the Senate Banking Committee turned up dozens of biological agents shipped to Iraq during the mid-'80s under license from the Commerce Department, including various strains of anthrax, subsequently identified by the Pentagon as a key component of the Iraqi biological warfare program. The Commerce Department also approved the export of insecticides to Iraq, despite widespread suspicions that they were being used for chemical warfare.

   The fact that Iraq was using chemical weapons was hardly a secret. In February 1984, an Iraqi military spokesman effectively acknowledged their use by issuing a chilling warning to Iran. ``The invaders should know that for ever harmful insect, there is an insecticide capable of annihilating it ..... and Iraq possesses this annihilation insecticide.''

   In late 1987, the Iraqi air force began using chemical agents against Kurdish resistance forces in northern Iraq that had formed a loose alliance with Iran, according to State Department reports. The attacks, which were part of a ``scorched earth'' strategy to eliminate rebel-controlled villages, provoked outrage on Capitol Hill and renewed demands for sanctions against Iraq. The State Department and White House were also outraged--but not to the point of doing anything that might seriously damage relations with Baghdad.

   ``The U.S.-Iraqi relationship is ..... important to our long-term political and economic objectives,'' Assistant Secretary of State Richard W. Murphy wrote in a September 1988 memorandum that addressed the chemical weapons question. ``We believe that economic sanctions will be useless or counterproductive to influence the Iraqis.''

   Bush administration spokesmen have cited Hussein's use of chemical weapons ``against his own people''--and particularly the March 1988 attack on the Kurdish village of Halabjah--to bolster their argument that his regime presents a ``grave and gathering danger'' to the United States.

   The Iraqis continued to use chemical weapons against the Iranians until the end of the Iran-Iraq war. A U.S. air force intelligence officer, Rick Francona, reported finding widespread use of Iraqi nerve gas when he toured the Al Faw peninsula in southern Iraq in the summer of 1988, after its recapture by the Iraqi army. The battlefield was littered with atropine injectors used by panicky Iranian troops as an antidote against Iraqi nerve gas attacks.

   Far from declining, the supply of U.S. military intelligence to Iraq actually expanded in 1988, according to a 1999 book by Francna, ``Ally to Adversary: an Eyewitness Account of Iraq's Fall from Grace,'' Informed sources said much of the battlefield intelligence was channeled to the Iraqis by the CIA office in Baghdad.

   Altough U.S. export controls to Iraq were tightened up in the late 1980s, thee were still many loopholes. In December 1988, Dow Chemical sold $1.5 million of pesticides to Iraq, despite U.S. government concerns that they could be used as chemical warfare agents. An Export-Import Bank official reported in a memorandum that he could find ``no reason'' to stop the sale, despite evidence that the pesticides were ``highly toxic'' to humans and would cause death ``from asphyxiation.''

   The U.S. policy of cultivating Hussein as a moderate and reasonable Arab leader continued right up until he invaded Kuwait in August 1990, documents show. When the then-U.S. ambassador to Baghdad, April Glaspie, met with Hussein on July 25, 1990, a week before the Iraqi attack on Kuwait, she assured him that Bush ``wanted better and deeper relations,'' according to an Iraqi transcript of the conversation. ``President Bush is an intelligent man,'' the ambassador told Hussein, referring to the father of the current president. ``He is not going to declare an economic war against Iraq.''

   ``Everybody was wrong in their assessment of Saddam,'' said Joe Wilson, Glaspie's former deputy at the U.S. embassy in Baghdad, and the last U.S. official to meet with Hussein. ``Everybody in the Arab world told us that the best way to deal with Saddam was to develop a set of economic and commercial relationships that would have the effect of moderating his behavior. History will demonstrate that this was a miscalculation.''

   Mr. JOHNSON. Mr. President, my concern today is not to lay blame for past decisions which now place every American family, every American community in very real jeopardy from these weapons of mass destruction and which now give rise to the clear possibility, if not great likelihood, of war in Iraq with its attendant costs in lives of combatants and innocent civilians alike. Rather, it is my concern that this Senate and this Nation clearly understand how we arrived at this point so that we might learn from our Nation's past tragic mistakes.

   As Mr. Michael Dobbs of the Washington Post writes:

   The story of U.S. involvement with Saddam Hussein in the years before his 1990 attack on Kuwait--which included large-scale intelligence sharing, supply of cluster bombs through a Chilean front company, and facilitating Iraq's acquisition of chemical and biological precursors--is a topical example of the underside of U.S. foreign policy. It is a world in which deals can be struck with dictators, human rights violations sometimes overlooked, and accommodations made with arms proliferators. .....

   The United States also provided billions of dollars in credits to help arm Iraq, ostensibly to assist with its war at that time against Iran.

   The review of declassified documents and interviews with former policymakers:

   reveals that the administrations of Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush authorized the sale to Iraq of numerous items that had both military and civilian applications, including poisonous chemicals and deadly biological viruses, such as anthrax and bubonic plague.

   Anthrax and bubonic plague from the United States to Iraq.

   The Reagan administration removed Iraq from the State Department terrorism list in 1982 over the strong objections of Congress. Despite this delisting, Iraq continued throughout the 1980s to harbor terrorists, including even Abu Abbas, leader of the Palestinian Liberation Front.

   The Reagan administration effectively turned a blind eye to the export of dual use items such as chemical precursors and steel

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   Mr. President, sadly, there is no new precedent in our Government using our citizens' tax dollars to finance the purchase of weaponry for antidemocratic, antihuman rights, and unstable foreign nations only to see their short-term friendship disappear and to have them become enemies to the United States and the Western World. What is truly shocking here, however, is that the very possession of chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction, which is the justification for a new war in Iraq and which places in jeopardy the safety of American families, American communities, and American military personnel, is, in large measure, the consequence of decisions made by the Reagan and Bush administrations.

   As we speak, tens of thousands of U.S. gulf war veterans continue to suffer from exposure to chemical agents over a decade ago. We in Congress debate whether and how to inoculate hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Americans to protect them from biological weapons that their own Government helped create in Iraq.

   It is one thing that our Nation would have provided cluster bombs and conventional weaponry to Saddam Hussein--it no doubt seemed important and strategically helpful to the purpose of stabilizing the Middle East during the 1980's. But how can members of this Senate look members of our military in the eye--and I include my own son, a sergeant in the 101st Airborne and a veteran of Bosnia, Kosovo and Afghanistan--and acknowledge that these past administrations, albeit without congressional knowledge or consent, allowed Iraq to acquire the anthrax, and bubonic plague viruses?

   The circumstance our Nation now faces, from the threats of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction as well as the possibility that these weapons have or will fall into the hands of Al-Qaida or other non-state terrorist organizations, are to a great degree, circumstances of our own making. Obviously, no American administration has ever supported terrorism against our own people, though interfering with Iraq's use of these weapons against many of its own people was apparently not a matter of first concern to the U.S.

   The lesson should be clear--to the extent that the U.S. arms the world, it undertakes a risk that those weapons could be used against our own citizens. While helping proven democratic allies to defend themselves will always be a legitimate role for the U.S., it is hard to imagine a lesson driven home more profoundly than we find today that arming non-democracies is a much greater risk, and arming non-democracies with weapons of chemical and biological warfare capability is an outrageous and utterly unacceptable risk to the U.S. and the world. It may be impossible for our Nation to avoid reaping what is has sown in the past, but this administration, this Congress and the American people must be united now in committing never again to be even a unwitting instrument of chemical, biological or nuclear terror in the world.

   I yield the floor.

5A) DPRK and the United States
Mr. HASTINGS of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to introduce and discuss a Concurrent Resolution concerning North Korea. It calls on North Korea and the United States, in a demonstration of good faith, to return to an interim level of compliance with the Agreed Framework.

Once both nations have agreed that this is an acceptable starting point, diplomatic negotiations can begin, and we can work together to develop a more comprehensive and mutually acceptable agreement or treaty.

Last year, when North Korea admitted that it has been operating a covert nuclear weapons program, I immediately introduced a Resolution condemning those actions and calling on North Korea and the United States to honor their commitments in the Agreed Framework.

The existence of a North Korean nuclear weapons program constitutes a real and imminent threat to the populations of South Korea, and Japan, and certainly to the U.S. forces stationed in those countries.

I was certain then, as I am now, that our wisest course of action was to meet our obligations under the Agreed Framework and continue monthly heavy fuel oil shipments to North Korea. I was also certain that if we did not honor our commitments, tensions between our two nations would rise at an alarming rate.

Regrettably, my Resolution was neither considered nor adopted in the 107th Congress. And indeed, the situation with North Korea has gone from bad to worse.

I have watched incredulously as this Administration has stumbled again and again, making a bad situation worse, because it has failed to develop even the rudimentary beginnings of a policy to deal with North Korea.

Enough is enough. Between our poorly defined declaration of war against terrorism and our imminent war with Iraq, we have all the conflict we can handle.

The crisis in North Korea is a serious one, and I don't for a moment believe that resuming an interim level of compliance with the Agreed Framework will be the end of it.

However, I do believe that we must do something to resolve this impasse and we must also do something to garner support for those nations most effected by North Korea's nuclear weapons capabilities--South Korea, Japan, and China.

If, in a show of good faith, we resume our obligations, we will be much more likely to have the support of those nations if sanctions are necessary in the future.

The responsibility for complying with treaty obligations rests with the two nations that signed the Agreed Framework--the United States and North Korea.

The responsibility for certifying that North Korea is in compliance with its portion of the Agreed Framework rests with the IAEA.

The responsibility for determining appropriate sanctions if North Korea fails to comply with its portions of the Agreed Framework rests with the United Nations.

It's that simple.

I urge my colleagues to support this resolution. I believe it will establish our nation as a leader in seeking diplomatic solutions to complicated problems and will be the first step in a developing a policy with North Korea that is achievable, attainable, and supportable by other nations as well.

HCON 18 IH

Calling on the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and the United States to return to an interim level of compliance with the Agreed Framework of 1994 while a more comprehensive and mutually acceptable agreement can be negotiated by those two nations.

January 28, 2003

Mr. HASTINGS of Florida submitted the following concurrent resolution; which was referred to the Committee on International Relations

Calling on the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and the United States to return to an interim level of compliance with the Agreed Framework of 1994 while a more comprehensive and mutually acceptable agreement can be negotiated by those two nations.

Whereas in the Agreed Framework between the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) and the United States, signed in Geneva on October 21, 1994, North Korea pledged to freeze its existing nuclear program and allow the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to carry out inspections designed to account for all its nuclear material and in return, North Korea would be provided with two light-water reactors and heavy fuel oil;

Whereas in the Agreed Framework, the United States pledged to organize, under its leadership, an international consortium to finance and supply North Korea with alternative sources of energy in the form of heavy fuel oil and a modern nuclear power plant;

Whereas the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO), an international consortium, was created in 1995 to advance the implementation of the Agreed Framework;

Whereas in October 2002, North Korea admitted that it had been operating a covert nuclear weapons program;

Whereas in December 2002, the United States halted a shipment of heavy fuel oil to North Korea;

Whereas in December 2002, North Korea expelled IAEA inspectors, disabled surveillance cameras installed by the IAEA inspectors, and broke seals barring entry to a plutonium reprocessing plant; and

Whereas the IAEA, an independent organization of the United Nations, has initiated separate negotiations with North Korea to allow its inspectors to return to the country: Now, therefore, be it

Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate concurring), That Congress--

(1) calls on the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea), in an interim demonstration of good faith, to allow International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors to return to North Korea, reinstall surveillance cameras, and reseal the aforementioned plutonium reprocessing plant while a more comprehensive and mutually acceptable agreement can be negotiated with the United States;

(2) calls on the United States, in an interim demonstration of good faith, to resume monthly fuel oil shipments to North Korea while a more comprehensive and mutually acceptable agreement can be negotiated with that nation;

(3) commends the IAEA for its efforts and calls on that organization to continue its separate and independent negotiations with North Korea to allow its inspectors to return to the country;

(4) calls on North Korea and the United States to immediately begin diplomatic talks and negotiations until a mutually acceptable binding treaty to resolve the current crisis has been agreed to by both parties; and

(5) calls on the members of the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO), and the Russian Federation, the Republic of Korea, Australia, Canada, and other concerned nations to support this interim solution and all diplomatic attempts by the United States and North Korea to achieve a peaceful resolution to the current crisis.

5B) South Korea and the DMZ
Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, last December I traveled to South Korea in my capacity as chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Military Construction, as well as a member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. I was able to visit and talk with U.S. troops and inspect facilities. I also toured the DMZ, a chilling legacy of a war many Americans have already forgotten.

   My visit could not have been more timely. The combination of saber-rattling in the North and anti-American protests in the South has made Korea front page news once again, as it faces its most complicated, and potentially explosive, crisis since the Korean war, 1950-53.

   The Korean peninsula is a land of stunning beauty and startling contrasts. Divided at the end of World War Il, following a long occupation by Japan, Korea continues to be one of the few reminders of what the world was like during the cold war.

   North Korea is a quasi-Stalinist state which, since its formal creation in 1948, has been run by two men, Kim Il Sung, who died in 1994, and his son, Kim Jong Il. Still almost entirely closed to the Western World, North Korea is a stark and isolated country marked by repression and poverty.

   Then, on the other side of the demilitarized zone, DMZ, perhaps the most tense border on Earth, is South Korea, a prosperous, Westernized democratic state. South Korea has been a staunch U.S. ally, and 37,000 U.S. troops have been stationed there for the past 40 years.

   Waged from 1950 to 1953, the Korean war ended in a virtual stalemate, with the peninsula still divided. Mr. President, 54,246 American men and women died during that war, and although there are no precise figures for Korean casualties, conservative estimates put the figure at approximately 4 million, the majority of these being civilians.

   On my trip to South Korea on the eve of the Presidential elections, I was surprised at the widespread anti-Americanism. Indeed, it was this issue, a growing sense that the United States was an imperial power indifferent to the needs and desires of the Korean people, that led Roh Moo Hyun to victory.

   It is difficult to appreciate the situation on the Korean peninsula without a visit to the demilitarized zone. I was taken there in a helicopter by Gen. Leon LaPorte, our four-star general in command, who pointed out North Korean troop concentrations. It is an alarming sight, and in many ways a step back in time.

   I then paid a visit to Panmunjum, a small village frozen in time, unchanged for half a century, which straddles the line separating North and South Korea. It was here that the Armistice ending the war was signed.

   Seventy percent of the 1.2 million man North Korean army is deployed

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   Since my visit, the 800,000 forward-deployed North Korean troops have been placed on high alert and are prepared to move instantly.

   I believe the blame for precipitating this crisis lies squarely with North Korea, which clearly violated the Agreed Framework by beginning the surreptitious development of nuclear capacity.

   North Korea has also expelled all international inspectors and equipment; withdrawn from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty; restarted its plutonium processing plants; moved thousands of plutonium rods out of locked safe storage back into the nuclear production line; and is enriching uranium for nuclear weapon purposes.

   The government of Kim Jong Il has clearly placed its focus, not on feeding its people, but in developing its military, its missiles and its nuclear capability, all in defiance of treaties it has signed.

   Yet it also appears that our own handling of events on the Korean peninsula over the past 2 years, as well as our broader foreign policy rhetoric and statements have served, ironically, to fuel North Korea's paranoia and made the situation much more difficult to manage.

   Part of the problem has been our reluctance to endorse outgoing President Kim Dae Jung's ``Sunshine Policy,'' a diplomatic and economic effort by the South Korean government to ease tensions with the North. President Kim was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2000 for precisely these initiatives.

   This move was perceived as a major humiliation in South Korea, helped set the stage for the rising tide of anti-Americanism, and was seen as a sign by the North that the administration was intent on a policy of isolation and confrontation.

   The North Korean situation offers no easy solution. We should keep the door open to the possibility of high level discussion.

   This ongoing crisis has also led many to rethink America's military presence on the Korean peninsula. Such periodic reviews are a good idea, but at the same time, I strongly believe that we should not do anything hastily.

   And although overshadowed by the crisis, much of my trip to South Korea focused on determining how to best finance the reconfiguration of U.S. military installations in South Korea.

   In the past 2 years alone, Congress has appropriated more than $500 million for military construction in South Korea. Much of this money has gone to improve barracks and to begin to implement a program known as the Korean Land Partnership Plan.

   This joint U.S.-Republic of Korea plan is designed to reduce the U.S. military ``footprint'' in Korea, while at the same time upgrade facilities for U.S. soldiers. This latter effort is particularly important, seeing that the living and working conditions are among the poorest in the entire U.S. military.

   Currently, the 37,000 U.S. troops stationed in South Korea are scattered among 41 troop installations and 54 small camps and support sites. Under the Land Partnership Plan, the number of troop installations would be reduced to 23, a move that I support.

   When near the DMZ, I also visited Camp Casey, which is north of UijongBu and occupied by some 6300 military and 2500 civilians. More than any other site I saw, Camp Casey clearly demonstrated the need for improved living conditions at the soldier barracks. This is an issue that deserves immediate attention in the 108th Congress.

   As I mentioned earlier, I believe that the present crisis can be resolved. The United States should be more sensitive to our longstanding ally, South Korea, just as we should ensure that North Korea not be allowed to bully or intimidate its neighbors.

   Finally, I believe that my trip could not have been more timely. It has given me a fresh and immediate perspective on a land and a people for which I have great admiration. Since returning to Washington, I have met with both the South Korean National Security Adviser and their Ambassador to the United States.

   These talks, as well as those with my Senate colleagues and members of the Bush administration, give me confidence that we will be able to work well with President Roh, and that our bilateral relationship is strong enough to weather any short-term setbacks.

   Lastly, I would once again like to thank Ambassador Thomas Hubbard and Gen. Leon LaPorte for all their assistance while I was in South Korea.

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