STATEMENT BY BOB KERReY, ON U.S. POLICY TOWARD IRAQ , march 1, 2001

Danny Pleka (ph) is very persuasive, and it's nice to have a chance to come back, especially to talk on this particular subject. Mr. Chairman, I have a longer statement that's a bit mangled, but I'd like to ask that it be put in the record.

MR. KERREY: And I'll try not to drag this out too long. First, let me observe that on Monday we had the opportunity to watch a very moving ceremony in Kuwait, with General Schwarzkopf, Secretary Powell and former President Bush, celebrating the 10 year anniversary of the liberation of Kuwait. That liberation occurred on 26th February 1991. Two days later, on the 28th -- yesterday -- we celebrated the cease fire of that rather remarkable 208 day occupation of Kuwait by Iraq. And the driving of the Iraqi forces out of Kuwait was celebrated, quite correctly, as a remarkable demonstration of power used for good in a multilateral, multinational way.

My guess is, start that thing from scratch today and people would say it can't be done, shouldn't be done, et cetera. But, it was a rather remarkable accomplishment. Well, Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, a lot's happened in the decade since, and I do think it's important to look at the history. I'm not going to go through all the details, but I'd like to describe five important things that have happened in the last 10 years that I think are enormously relevant to the discussion, and help frame the debate for what we're going to do going forward.

First, after that cease fire was declared, Iraq agreed to allow United Nations weapons inspectors to verify that Iraq had destroyed its capacity to manufacture chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. Until verification was complete, the United Nations voted to enforce -- the Security Council voted to enforce external sanctions that would permit Iraq to sell oil and food -- or excuse me -- oil for food and medicine that they needed for domestic consumption. The time that was estimated to get this done was in months if Saddam Hussein cooperated. And what's come to be quite common practice, he confounded expectations by interfering, by harassing, and in the end, banning the weapons inspectors from the territory.

With reliable intelligence, I think this committee has confirmed the reason for Iraq's behavior. It's quite simply they want to maintain a robust program to develop weapons of mass destruction. Second thing that needs to be considered over the last 10 years is that Iraq has maintained a policy so hostile to human rights, especially for Kurdish minority in the north and the Shi'ites in the south -- and I would say, Senator Wellstone, I think if we stop those No Fly operations, we would have Kurds dying in the North and Shi'ites dying in the South. And they are alive today as a consequence of those No Fly Zones being maintained. No dissent is possible inside of Iraq. Thousands have been imprisoned, tortured and executed for opposing the current regime.

Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, with or without sanctions, the 20 million people of Iraq deserve to have the United States of America on the side of their freedom. Third, we have sustained a military effort to contain Iraq, and that military effort has cost us lives. U.S. and British pilots fly almost daily, as Senator Wellstone observed, to enforce the No Fly Zones in the North and in the South.

But, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, we also maintain a presence at the Dhahran military installation in Saudi Arabia. And the significance of that is that this installation, part of our containment policy, was the target of a truck bomb attack on 25 June 1996 that killed 19 U.S. airmen. It was cited by Osama bin Laden as a reason for attacking U.S. embassies in West Africa on August 7, 1998, that killed 11 Americans and over 200 others. Our military presence was cited again when the USS Cole was attacked on October 12, 2000 in the Port of Aden, Yemen, killing 17 American sailors.

I point this out, Mr. Chairman, because when the debate occurs as to whether or not military force is needed, do not forget that we already have a very expensive military operation in place today. The question is not should we have a military operation. The question is how should that military operation be deployed. Fourth, when he signed the Iraq Liberation into law on October 31, 1998, President Clinton began the process of shifting away from the failed policy of using military force to contain Iraq, to supporting military force to replace the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein with a democratically elected government. And although our support for opposition forces has been uneven at best, this new policy is still current law.

Fifth, Mr. Chairman, opponents of establishing our policy objection of liberation of the people of Iraq use a number of effective arguments, and I'd like to cite them because I'd like to also refute them. They say we would never get the support for a military operation. They say that democracy won't work in Iraq -- that Arabs aren't capable of governing themselves. They say finally that the opposition forces lack the legitimacy and capability of the most -- in particular, the most visible organization, the Iraq National Congress lacks the coherency and ability to be able to get the job done.

Well, Mr. Chairman, I'm very much aware that these arguments gather force when they're not answered, so I'd like to answer all three. The first -- and these arguments are little more than excuses, in my view, designed to keep us from doing what we know we should do, and we know what we can do if our will is strong. The argument against military force encourages us to ignore the hundreds of millions that we spend every single year to contain Iraq and the 47 American lives that have already been lost to enforce this containment policy.

The argument that Arabs cannot government themselves is racist, and encourages us to ignore a million Arab-Americans who exercise their rights when those rights are protected by a constitution and law. And the argument against the INC is little more than a parroting of Saddam Hussein's propaganda.

Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, I'm very much aware that domestic and international support has been steadily eroding for continuing sanctions against Iraq, let alone a new military strategy to end the nightmare of this dictatorship. I have watched with growing sadness as Iraq has exploited the public's lack of memory, the Clinton administration's silence, and the world's appetite for its production of four million barrels of oil a day. I have read the reports of Secretary Colin Powell's return to Kuwait this week, and the difficulties he is having convincing our allies that we must stay the course in opposing the Iraqi regime.

I have read proposals by informed commentators to try to get the best deal we can at this point, including one by Mr. Tom Freedman (sp) that would offer an end to sanctions and U.S. recognition in exchange for allowing U.S. inspectors to verify that weapons of mass instruction are not being building in Iraq.

Mr. Chairman and members of this committee, I urge you not to go along with the flow. This flow of public opinion, in my opinion, will lead us in the wrong direction. The United States should push back hard in the opposite direction. And the reason, Mr. Chairman, is simple. Saddam Hussein's Iraq represents a triple treat to us, to our allies in the region, and to the 20 million people who have the misfortune to live in a country where torture and killing of political opposition has become so routine, it is rarely reported. Iraq is a threat to us because they have the wealth and the will to build weapons of mass destruction -- chemical, biological and nuclear.

Since the end of the Gulf War in '91, Saddam Hussein has lied and cheated his way out of the inspection regime, and has succeeded in convincing too many world leaders to overlook the danger he poses to them. Iraq is a threat to allies in the region because they have displayed -- Iraq has displayed no remorse and no regret for their invasion of Kuwait. Instead, they continue to justify their illegal act and condemn the U.S. led effort, which forced them to surrender the territory of their neighbor after inflicting inestimable damage to Kuwait. The Iraqi government is a threat to their own people, especially the Kurds in the northern provinces and the Shi'ites in the South.

Mr. Chairman, without our willingness to maintain No Fly Zones in the North and South, thousands more innocents would have died from Iraqi military assaults. It is by no means clear cut that Iraqi civilians are suffering as a consequence of our sanctions. What is clear cut is that the Iraqi people are suffering as a consequence of Saddam Hussein's policy of diverting United Nation's money away from needed food and medicine, to rebuilding his palaces and his military.

So, Mr. Chairman, I come here today to urge you to stay the course. Join with President Bush and tell him to imagine returning to Baghdad himself 10 years from now to celebrate the liberation of Iraq. In my view, it is possible. In the view of the Iraqi people, the people living in the region, and the people of the United States of America, it is also desirable. So, what specifically can we do? Well, let me just offer modestly, in the spirit of bipartisan foreign policy, in the words of a group of now senior Bush Administration officials who wrote a letter to President Clinton in 1998, there are three things that would be the beginning of the end of Saddam Hussein's reign of terror.

First, we should recognize a provisional government of Iraq based on the principles and leaders of the Iraq National Congress, that is representative of all the peoples of Iraq. Second, Mr. Chairman, we should restore and we should enhance a safe haven in northern Iraq that would allow a provisional government to extend its authority there, and establish a zone in southern Iraq from which Saddam's ground forces would also be excluded. And third, we should lift the sanctions in the liberated areas.

Mr. Chairman and members of this committee, these three moves, in my view, would signal that the United States of America will not yield ground to the world's worse and most dangerous dictator. And we would send a signal to the people of Iraq that we will not be satisfied until they are free to determine their own fate.

Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I want to thank you again for the invitation to hear my views.

SEN. BROWNBACK: Thank you very much. Thank you for the powerful statement and the clarity with it too. I look forward to having a good discussion on these points as we go on throughout.

http://www.iraqwatch.org/government/US/HearingsPreparedstatements/sfrc3-1-01.htm

MR. PETERSON: Let’s move to another subject. (Laughter.)

There’s a lot of talk about how we ought to take on Iraq, and that we think they’ve got biological weapons, and we think that they have them weaponized, and they may have nuclear materials. But what’s less clear to me is what we mean exactly by “taking on Iraq,” particularly if they don't do anything overt; particularly if we don’t demonstrate that they were involved in September 11th.

So can you give me some scenarios that you think are sensible, that put some meat on the bones of how we’re going to take on Iraq? What do we mean by this?

MR. KERREY: Invade Iraq and liberate 24 million Iraqis. That’s what I’d do.

http://www.concordcoalition.org/home/01dinnerpanel.htm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/1298289.stm

Former United States Senator Bob Kerry, a possible contender for the White House in 2004, has admitted that his commando unit massacred civilians when he was a Navy officer in Vietnam, The New York Times has reported.
Mr Kerry was awarded a Bronze Star for the 25 February 1969 action in the village of Thanh Phong in the Mekong Delta.

Basically you're talking about a man who killed innocent civilians

Bob Kerry
The two-time Democratic senator from Nebraska says his unit of seven Navy Seals - elite commando troops - killed at least 13 women and children during indiscriminate night-time firing.

One of the men under his command at the time disputes Mr Kerry's version of events, claiming that the unit rounded up the civilians and killed them to hasten their escape.

Mr Kerry refused to contradict the man, saying their memories differed.

In-depth investigation

Mr Kerry, who stepped down from the US Senate in January and is now president of the New School University in New York, admitted his role in the massacre over the course of more than two years of interviews with The New York Times.

Mr Kerry said he has been haunted by Vietnam memories

A possible presidential candidate, Mr Kerry said it would be "very interesting to see the reactions to the story. I mean, because basically you're talking about a man who killed innocent civilians."

It is not clear what effect the revelations would have on any decision that Mr Kerry might make to run for office in the future.

In Mr Kerry's version of events, his group approached Thanh Phong near midnight on 25 February, 1969.

They encountered a hut on their approach, and men under his command entered it and killed the people inside.

Mr Kerry denied participating in the killings, but took responsibility for them as commanding officer.

Indiscriminate firing

When his group reached the village, they were fired upon in the darkness and shot back, firing some 1,200 rounds.

When they investigated after they stopped shooting, he said, they found they had killed a number of women and children. There were no adult men among the dead.

Gerhard Klann, a more experienced soldier who was under Mr Kerry's command at the time, remembers events differently.

He said Mr Kerry helped him kill an old man and woman and three children at the first hut, and that the unit then rounded up and shot the women and children of Thanh Phong to prevent them raising the alarm.

The Army Field Manual explicitly forbids killing prisoners "on grounds of self-preservation", but many people who served in Vietnam said the unwritten rules of the conflict made it clear that such actions were acceptable.

Witnesses

A Vietnamese woman who says she was an eyewitness supported Mr Klann's story.

I thought dying for your country was the worst thing that could happen to you - I think killing for your country can be a lot worse

Bob Kerry
The only other member of the commando unit willing to speak to the press about the raid supported some elements of each account and contradicted others.

Mr Kerry - who was given the Medal of Honour for a later operation and lost a leg to a grenade in the conflict - says he has been wracked by guilt for 32 years since the event.

"I thought dying for your country was the worst thing that could happen to you," he told The New York Times, referring to how he felt before he went to Vietnam as a 25-year-old lieutenant.

"I think killing for your country can be a lot worse. Because that's the memory that haunts."

STATEMENT BY BOB KERREY, ON U.S.
POLICY TOWARD IRAQ, March 1, 2001
Excerpt:
Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, with or without sanctions, the 20 million people of Iraq deserve to have the United States of America on the side of their freedom. Third, we have sustained a military effort to contain Iraq, and that military effort has cost us lives. U.S. and British pilots fly almost daily, as Senator Wellstone observed, to enforce the No Fly Zones in the North and in the South.
But, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, we also maintain a presence at the Dhahran military installation in Saudi Arabia. And the significance of that is that this installation, part of our containment policy, was the target of a truck bomb attack on 25 June 1996 that killed 19 U.S. airmen. It was cited by Osama bin Laden as a reason for attacking U.S. embassies in West Africa on August 7, 1998, that killed 11 Americans and over 200 others. Our military presence was cited again when the USS Cole was attacked on October 12, 2000 in the Port of Aden, Yemen, killing 17 American sailors.
I point this out, Mr. Chairman, because when the debate occurs as to whether or not military force is needed, do not forget that we already have a very expensive military operation in place today. The question is not should we have a military operation. The question is how should that military operation be deployed. Fourth, when he signed the Iraq Liberation into law on October 31, 1998, President Clinton began the process of shifting away from the failed policy of using military force to contain Iraq, to supporting military force to replace the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein with a democratically elected government. And although our support for opposition forces has been uneven at best, this new policy is still current law.
Fifth, Mr. Chairman, opponents of establishing our policy objection of liberation of the people of Iraq use a number of effective arguments, and I'd like to cite them because I'd like to also refute them. They say we would never get the support for a military operation. They say that democracy won't work in Iraq -- that Arabs aren't capable of governing themselves. They say finally that the opposition forces lack the legitimacy and capability of the most -- in particular, the most visible organization, the Iraq National Congress lacks the coherency and ability to be able to get the job done.
< snip >
So, Mr. Chairman, I come here today to urge you to stay the course. Join with President Bush and tell him to imagine returning to Baghdad himself 10 years from now to celebrate the liberation of Iraq. In my view, it is possible ....

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