Joseph Lieberman

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I appreciate the comments the Senator has made. I think they are right on target. Is there any reason from history or evidence to believe Saddam Hussein is developing these weapons of mass destruction for defensive purposes? Isn't the thought he might use them against someone else if attacked indication he would use them offensively as soon as he feels the opportunity to do so?

Mr. LIEBERMAN. I agree with the Senator from Maryland. And, of course, I agree with his----

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. LIEBERMAN. We do, and that is the question. I view the underlying resolution I have introduced with Senators Warner, McCain, and Bayh as an international resolution. It is all about enforcing the resolutions of the United Nations. It acknowledges, appreciates, encourages the President to go forward at the United Nations, but it is based on the premise that if we indicate a willingness to lead, even in leading an international coalition, to enforce U.N. resolutions if someone exercises a veto against doing that at the Security Council, that others will follow. I think the strength in our underlying resolution is the best way to guarantee that either through the U.N. or after----

Mr. LIEBERMAN. That we must do it in Iraq.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Madam President, I believe there is an order. I ask unanimous consent that I be able to speak for a moment.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Madam President, I thank the Senator from Iowa for his strong and thoughtful statement and for his expression of intention to vote for this resolution--all the more significant, as he pointed out, because he was one of two Republican Members of the Senate to vote against the similar resolution prior to the gulf war. And I think his support--a respected and solid Member of the Senate, as he is--gives encouragement to those of us who are the sponsors of this resolution that when the final roll is called, we will enjoy the broad bipartisan support that I truly believe this resolution deserves and the moment requires. I thank my colleague and the Chair.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Florida for the thoughtful statement he has made. I agree with so much he has said, certainly about the threats that are represented by the terrorist groups cited in his amendment, but I want to explain why I have reluctance about the amendment. It is for reasons that are both procedural and substantive. The resolution offered by Senator McCain, Senator Warner, Senator Bayh, myself, and others--including the occupant of the Chair, the Senator from Georgia--is the result of a detailed, open, and sincere process of negotiation between Members of both Chambers, both parties, and the White House. This is not to say it is a perfect document, but in responding to the threat to our national security posed by Iraq under the leadership of Saddam Hussein, it represents our best effort to find common ground to dispatch our constitutional responsibility and to provide an opportunity for the broadest bipartisan group of Senators to come together and express their support of action to enforce the United Nations resolutions that Saddam Hussein has constantly violated, and in so doing endangered his neighbors, his people and, of course, the rest of the world, including us. We have a well-worked-over and finely calibrated document. In his amendment, the Senator from Florida has opened new territory, and I am reluctant to see that added to this resolution, all the more so since the new territory he opens up was considered in the immediate aftermath of the attacks against us on September 11 when the initial resolution in which the President sought to have authority to take action against terrorists generally--not just those who had planned, authorized, committed, or aided terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11 of last year--was rejected or was opposed by a large number of Members of the Senate, including particularly those on the Democratic side, and in that sense the amendment offered by the Senator from Florida may well reopen concerns expressed by many Senate Democrats about granting too much authority to the President at this point. Let me get to the essence of what is said. Clearly, I agree with what the Senator has said, and I agree wholeheartedly with his description of the terrorist groups he has cited, specifically five in number, and the extent to which they represent a threat to the areas in which they operate, as well as the American people. I respectfully disagree with him that the President of the United States would not be authorized, without this action, to take action against any of these groups--the Abu Nidal organization, Hamas, Hezbollah, Palestine Islamic Jihad, Palestinian Liberation Front--if the President, as Commander in Chief, concluded that any one of those groups or its members posed a threat to the security of the American people or any group of Americans. It seems to me that is inherent in the authority given to the President, as Commander in Chief, under article II, section 2 of the Constitution, followed by other descriptions of the authority that the President has in that regard, and not just the general constitutional authority but the specific acts of this Congress that have dealt with terrorism and have established a counterterrorism center at the Central Intelligence Agency, counterterrorism programs in the FBI, counterterrorism activities in the Department of Defense and the Department of State, all of them funded by Congress. Implicit in that is not that the money was funded just to study or investigate but that there is a presumption that if all of those programs produce evidence that any one of those groups is seeking to do damage to any one of the American people or group of Americans, then the President is authorized implicitly, inherently, in his authority as Commander in Chief to take action against them. In fact, as has been testified to publicly, the Special Operations Forces of our military, an extraordinary group we are fortunate to have in our service, has been working on programs together with the intelligence community and various nations around the world to watch--using the term ``watch'' in the broadest sense of the term--and be prepared to take specific action, not just court action. After September 11, we have made a transition to understanding that terrorists are at war with the United States so there are times when the best defense we can give is not to build a case in court but to take military action to stop the terrorists from striking before they ever do. So while I appreciate and support the concerns of the Senator from Florida, my own conclusion is that they would do some damage to the broad support that otherwise will come together for the resolution that we have introduced that deals with the immediate problem of Saddam Hussein, and that in the end it is not necessary because the President, as Commander in Chief, has the inherent authority, under the Constitution and the laws of the United States, to take exactly the action that the Senator's amendment would specifically authorize him to do. I yield the floor.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. From the text of the resolution we have submitted in section 4(b) after our authorization, we require, as soon as feasible, but not later than 48 hours after exercising such authority--that is, directly deploying forces of the United States--that the President has to make available to the Congress his determination that--and there are two sections he has to report. The material section is this: The President has to declare to Congress that pursuant to this resolution-- which is to say deploying forces for the purpose of enforcing U.N. resolutions against Iraq in protecting the national security of the American people against Iraq--is consistent with the United States and other countries continuing to take the necessary actions against international terrorist and terrorist organizations, including those nations, organizations, or persons who planned, authorized, committed, or aided terrorists in the attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001. I stress that this is not limited to those terrorists who acted against us on September 11. I see in this further support for the end goal, which the Senator from Florida has, which is to make sure the war against Iraq does not deter our war against terrorism and not just against al-Qaida but against any terrorist group that threatens the people of the United States, including the five the Senator from Florida enumerated. I yield the floor.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the Committee on Governmental Affairs Subcommittee on Oversight of Government Management, Restructuring, and the District of Columbia be authorized to meet on Tuesday, October 8, 2002 at 10 a.m. for a hearing entitled ``Dietary Supplements: Who is Protecting American Consumers?''

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. I thank the Senator from West Virginia. I wonder if the Senator--I know the Senator wishes to speak for more than 15 minutes--if he would allow me to speak for not more than 7 or 8 minutes now, without yielding his right to the floor thereafter.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Madam President, as the debate continues, I want to address myself to some of the history and also to some of the threat today. This is a most interesting book that somebody gave me, that is most timely. It came out very recently. I don't know the exact date. It is called ``The Threatening Storm: The Case for Invading Iraq.'' It is written by Kenneth Pollack, who worked for the Central Intelligence Agency. In the period of 1990, he was one of only three who earlier in 1990 were advising their superiors, and then ultimately the President of the United States, that an Iraqi attack against Kuwait was imminent, it was going to happen. Over time, he worked for the National Security Council under President Clinton. He is now at the Saban Center, a think tank here in Washington associated with the Brookings Institution. This is a most compelling piece of work. It speaks history here. It talks about the great history--the Senator from West Virginia is in the Chamber--the great classic history of Iraq. This, after all, is the place where the Biblical Garden of Eden grew, along beside the Tigris and the Euphrates. It is the place where Abraham, the father of the three great monotheistic faiths was when God called out to him and found his heart steadfast. Of course, in succeeding times it has had great periods of progress and leadership--unfortunately, not in recent times. But as we deal with Saddam today--those of us, including myself, who favor the resolution we have offered as an amendment, a substitute today--we tend to recite phrases about what a brutal dictator Saddam is, and his ambitions. He has used weapons of mass destruction. I think in this debate from time to time we have to go back to the details. There is a brief biography, in this book, of Saddam, of the radical upbringing he had, of the extent to which he fell under the so-called pan-Arabist influences, to create a power that would gain control over the entire Arab world. I want to read one quote from this book--again, ``The Threatening Storm'' by Kenneth Pollack: Saddam considers himself a great man of history, someone marked to accomplish great deeds. In his vast personality cult he is constantly compared with great figures of Iraq's past. Saddam believes himself destined to be the new leader of the Arabs, and he makes it apparent that this role will be a political-military role, meaning that he will achieve his position through some combination of conquest and acclaim. Addressing a unit of the Republican Guard, Saddam proclaimed that the honor of the Arab nation could not be achieved unless ``Iraq's arm reached out [beyond Iraqi territory] to every point in the Arab homeland.'' He has worked assiduously to make Iraq strong so that it can dominate the region militarily, acquire new territorial prizes, and become the champion of the Arabs. Saddam has said often and loudly that his goal is to create a new Arab union of some kind, headed by a powerful Iraq, that will be a new superpower. This is based on a thorough research of Saddam's history, of his statements, of his actions. Why did he invade Iran in the 1980s? Why did he invade Kuwait in the early 1990s? It is all part of realizing this ambition. Why has he developed weapons of mass destruction and used them, as this book points out--not once. There was a terrible genocide at Halabja. But he used chemical weapons repeatedly, and indeed experimentally, against the Kurds. Hundreds of thousands of people were killed. Against the Iranians--hundreds of thousands of people killed. I read somewhere today--elsewhere; I forget where it was--that Saddam is the first person since Hitler who has used chemicals for the purposes of mass death. So this history is chilling. I do not manufacture it. It is there. It is why it is so critically important to bring this madman back within the constraints of the United Nations resolutions and the peace that he agreed to at the end of the gulf war. Should Saddam be allowed to continue to develop these weapons of mass destruction and become the controlling hegemonic power he has long dreamed of becoming in the Arab world, Lord protect us. Lord protect the Arab world, when you think of the brutal dictatorship he has represented--no freedom, no opportunity for his people. And what about the rest of us, with Saddam in control of so much of the world's oil supply? So this history is very current as we consider all the options we have tried over the decade since the gulf war to disarm this dangerous dictator, and why those of us who have sponsored this resolution believe that the moment has come, as the President has said, effectively to say to Saddam: Either disarm or we are going to be forced to go to war to disarm you. We don't want to do this. But you represent such a danger to your neighbors, among whom we have such strong allies whose support is so critical to us, whose energy supply is so critical to our economy and that of the rest of the world, that if you don't disarm, we are going to have to take military action to do that. That is the history, the chilling history that affects the present and is why the four of us, and others now who have cosponsored this resolution, have done so--to prevent this man from achieving his evil ends. There have been many thoughtful statements on the floor. Mr. Stevens, the senior Senator from Alaska, spoke yesterday. Here is a proud, patriotic American, a veteran of World War II. He analogized this dictator we are facing to Hitler. Remember the lessons he was hearing in high school of the dangers represented by Hitler and the extent to which, if we didn't stop him then, we would have to stop him at a much higher price later on. I think the balance we have to strike here in deciding how to act is a similar balance. Do we act now, or do we act later, at much greater cost in blood, in treasure?

Mr. LIEBERMAN. I thank my friend.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. I thank my colleague from West Virginia for yielding me time. I yield the floor.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. LIEBERMAN. I thank the Chair. Madam President, in a short while, on behalf of a number of colleagues, particularly Senators Warner, Bayh, McCain, and myself--and I am happy to note the occupant of the Chair, the junior Senator from Louisiana is also a cosponsor with us--we are going to be offering a substitute to the pending business to authorize the use of United States Armed Forces against Iraq. This is, obviously, a momentous decision. The debate has begun in this Chamber over the last few days. I have watched a lot of it with great interest. It has been carried on with the tone of seriousness and purpose the matter requires. This debate will continue in earnest over the next few days as we, each in our own way, facing our own conscience, considering our values, our sense of history, our understanding of the threat posed by Iraq under Saddam Hussein, will reach a conclusion. Senators Warner, Bayh, McCain, and I have reached a conclusion in submitting the resolution. I say for the record this resolution is the result of an open and spirited process of discussion and negotiation between the President of the United States and Members of both parties in both Houses. The result is a resolution that, in its preamble, states the case against Saddam, the case of the ambitions this brutal dictator has to gain hegemonic control over the Arab world and the oil there; the extraordinary acts of brutality he has committed himself and directed others to commit against his own Iraqi people; his invasions of his neighbors, Iran and Kuwait, which is evidence, prior to the gulf war, of the long-held belief that he has had which is fundamental to the Baath party, which he heads, of rising to dominate the region as a modern-day Saladin and all that it contains. The resolution records the allied efforts in the gulf war which were triumphant, and the resolutions of the United Nations that followed thereafter as part of the promises Saddam Hussein made to end the gulf war, the most significant of which was to disarm and to allow United Nations inspectors in to guarantee the world that disarmament would occur. I talked to someone who was in our Government at that time, and they said the presumption was disarmament would occur rapidly and that inspectors might be necessary just to make sure there was not, over time, an attempt to rearm. Of course, it is 11 years after the gulf war ended, and disarmament has never occurred. The United Nations resolutions have been violated repeatedly, and ultimately the inspectors were thrown out in 1998. All of this, and more, is recorded in the preamble section of the resolution we will offer. Also recorded is the effort the Bush administration is making now to finally convince the United Nations to act, to prove its resolutions are worth more than the paper on which they are printed; that the United Nations Security Council will act to enforce its resolutions, to protect the world from the unique threat represented by Saddam Hussein, an ideology which calls on him to spread out and dominate his region, weapons of mass destruction he has used not once but repeatedly against the Kurdish people who are Iraqi citizens, and against the Iranians in war and his support of terrorism. There are only seven nations in the world our own State Department lists as state sponsors of terrorism. Iraq is one of those, and it has supported terrorist groups that have killed Americans. This is a unique circumstance. At different times I know our colleagues have asked: What about the other countries that are on the list of state sponsors of terrorism? What about other nations that have weapons of mass destruction? What about other nations that have aggressive ambitions? Well, there are such nations, but there is no one other nation that brings as much poison and evil intent together and, in that sense, so threatens the United States of America as Iraq. This resolution, which again is the process of bipartisan and bicameral negotiation with the White House, is explicit. It has taken some clauses out of the original White House proposal and has added some others, but in its most operative sections it says this Congress of the United States authorizes the President to use the Armed Forces of the United States 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. There are those who ask: Why now? What is the urgency? My own response, as the President of the United States declared most recently, last night, is: Why not earlier? Why not over the course of the last decade, when Saddam Hussein, to our knowledge, continued to build up his weapons of mass destruction and the most dangerous and threatening means to deliver them on targets near and far, constantly ignoring and violating resolutions of the United Nations, growing more ominous a threat to his neighbors and to the world? My answer, again, to, why now? is, why not earlier? Others have said: There has been no provocation. Why are we not waiting for an attack to occur? Well, why, after the devastation of September 11, 2001, would we want to wait until an attack occurs by someone who is clearly arming and threatening us? This is not, in the classic sense, an act of preemption to authorize the President to take military action against Iraq as a last resort if all else fails. In fact, the United States of America--and the United Nations, for that matter--have been in a continuing military conflict with Iraq since the gulf war began. We have 7,500 American military personnel dispatched to the region, working alongside their British colleagues to enforce the no-fly zones, costing American taxpayers more than $1 billion a year. This is not safe duty. This is not casual duty. These American Air Force personnel are being fired on repeatedly. More than 400 times this year alone, American and British aircraft have been fired on by Iraqi forces. So this is not an act of preemption. This is an act of response and prevention. Others have said on this floor that the authorization we are giving the President of the United States is an abrogation of our constitutional responsibilities and is much too broad. I respectfully disagree. It seems to me the Constitution and the Framers have set up attention, attention that they must have understood, to give us, the Members of Congress, the authority to declare war, to essentially authorize war, but they gave one person, the President of the United States, the power to be Commander in Chief to carry out war. Five hundred and thirty-five Members of Congress cannot conduct a war. It is our responsibility to determine when and under what circumstances we will authorize the Commander in Chief to do that, but only the President, as Commander in Chief, can do that. This resolution we will submit in a few moments strikes exactly the right balance. It gives the President a clear and a strong mandate, but it limits it. It limits it to a defense of the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq, and it authorizes the President to use military force, if necessary, to enforce all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq. For those of us who are sponsoring this resolution, it is based on our conclusion that Iraq is a threat to the security of the American people, a clear and present danger that, if we do not stop Saddam now, we will look back on some terrible day, with a profound sense of remorse and guilt, and say why didn't we do it? Based on those conclusions, all the evidence I have recited, and so much more that has been recited on this floor and will again be recited, this resolution says: Mr. President, we have decided Iraq is a danger to the United States, we have decided that United Nations Security Council resolutions can no longer be ignored, and we give you the authority, as Commander in Chief, to take it from there. In closing, with that authority we are giving the President come accountability and responsibility. There are some who have said this is a blank check. Of course if somebody forges a check, they are held accountable, but it is not as if this is a blank check, without accountability, on a bank account that has no limit. With this resolution--if and when, as I hope, it passes overwhelmingly--we not only give the President the authority to act within the parameters of the resolution, we give him a tremendous and awesome responsibility. It is not a blank check. It is the most serious responsibility the Congress can give the President. As the President himself has made clear over the last several weeks on several occasions, he understands the weight of that responsibility. But he and we, the sponsors of this resolution, understand if we do not authorize him to take this action, the American people may suffer a far worse fate. It is our intention to lay this resolution down soon. I look forward to the debate. My colleagues and I intend to be in the Chamber to answer questions of our colleagues about these issues.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. I am happy to yield for a question.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. I did.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. I thank the Senator from Arizona for his question. Of course, I agree with the Senator that the President of the United States has made it quite clear that he is asking us for this authority to dispatch our responsibility under the Constitution to give him the power to make war if necessary, but he hopes--and clearly, we hope-- that will not be necessary. I hope this is one of those cases where, as someone once said, the best way to achieve peace is to prepare for war. The best way to achieve compliance by Saddam Hussein with the promises he made at the end of the gulf war is to show that finally we are prepared to go to war once again to enforce those promises he made. This Nation has been remarkably patient. The fact is, over the last decade or more we and the United Nations have tried just about every other conceivable way, short of war, to get the Iraqis under Saddam Hussein to keep the promises they made and to disarm. We have tried sanctions which have been so difficult because of the way Saddam Hussein has carried them out on the Iraqi people. We have tried inspections. We have tried the Oil for Food Program. We have tried limited military action. None of it has worked to convince this brutal dictator to observe the rule of law and to keep the policies he made. In one sense, we might say this is the moment of truth for him, the challenge the President has given Saddam Hussein, and that this bipartisan resolution, which I hope and believe will achieve an overwhelming vote of bipartisan support by our colleagues, this resolution finally says to Saddam Hussein: Disarm. We do not want to go to war against you. Disarm or face war. The danger you represent is so great. We can only hope and pray that message will be heard in Baghdad. I thank my colleague for the question. I yield the floor.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. LIEBERMAN. I thank the Senator from Virginia. May I say first how grateful I am for his kind words towards this Senator. I return them in the fullness of sincerity. One of the great honors and pleasures of the last 14 years has been serving with you, but also getting to know you and considering you a friend. There is not a better person or gentleman or anyone more committed as a patriot to our country than the Senator from Virginia. I am honored once again to be working with him in this cause. I appreciate what he has just said about the programs of weapons of mass destruction Saddam Hussein has, and particularly these programs of chemical and biological weapons. I know the Senator has spent some time considering, and I wonder if you might, to the extent you are able to, discuss matters in an open session as to some of the concerns that I know you and I share about the programs that Saddam Hussein's Iraq has now to develop not just ballistic missiles to carry biological and chemical weapons but unmanned aerial vehicles, some of which are quite small and potentially could threaten not only Saddam's neighbors there in the region but potentially could threaten us, the American people, here in the continental United States.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. I thank the Senator. Our colleague from Indiana is waiting to speak, but I want to just very briefly say to you again what you know--and I hope to put some testimony into the Record--about the devastating biological weapons that Saddam possesses, some for which we do not have an effective cure or have an effective response. I hesitate to even say this, but I think to show the seriousness of what we are about, I know there has been a lot of discussion: Does Saddam have nuclear weapons? How soon will he have them? Will it be 10 years or 1 year or 5 years? But does the Senator agree with me that the biological weapons capacity Saddam has now, if delivered by an unmanned aerial vehicle, could do far more damage--I am talking about death to people--than the kind of primitive nuclear weapon he might have in a year at best, 5 years, 10 years? In other words, the danger is here. It is clear and present, and it is now.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Madam President, if I may seek the indulgence of my colleague from Indiana for just a moment, I am now prepared to send, on his behalf, on behalf of Senator Warner and Senator McCain, the occupant of the Chair, Senator Landrieu, and others, a resolution, an amendment in the nature of a substitute for S.J. Res. 45, which I ask the clerk to call up at this time, and ask that the clerk, for the Record, read the names of the initial cosponsors of the resolution.