Posted on 06/20/2004 9:29:57 AM PDT by nwrep
WASHINGTON -- Senator John F. Kerry, who began his public life as a Vietnam War protester, said yesterday that the United States should use ground troops to topple Iraqi President Saddam Hussein if he does not comply with international demands to give up chemical and biological weapons.
Kerry, a potential presidential candidate in 2000, said sending US troops into Iraq should be "the last option, but it is a legitimate option."
The state's junior senator said President Clinton had not been tough enough in his measures to subdue the Iraqi president.
Because Iraq will try to rebuild its chemical and biological weaponry after a US air attack, "we will not eliminate the problem for ourselves or for the rest of the world with a bombing attack," Kerry said.
Kerry said his conditional support for using ground troops put him "way ahead of the commander in chief, and I'm probably way ahead of my colleagues, and certainly of much of the country. But I believe this."
Freeper maggiefluffs found this speech by Kerry in 2002 on the Senate Floor.
There is a LOT of information in here to use against Kerry. Tons. And I hope you will all note the sections where he talks about the importance of getting UN Security Council clearance how different that is from when Clinton was president and Kerry told the Crossfire host that Clinton didn't need UN approval!!!!
http://www.johnkerry.com/pressroom/speeches/spc_2002_1009.html
"He was for the war before he was against the war before he was for threatening war before he was against being for the war before he was for being against the war."
One thing you have to grant Sen. Kerry: He IS consistently - - inconsistent.
Hilarious!
""Pod drops from vine in Fall""
He's the only one..
Kerry caught again in his flip - flops!
Remarks of Senator John Kerry on Iraq
Institute for Public Accuracy | October 09, 2002 | John Kerry
If he can't do something with it, no one can.
I have said publicly for years that weapons of mass destruction in the hands of Saddam Hussein pose a real and grave threat to our security and that of our allies in the Persian Gulf region. Saddam Hussein's record bears this out.
Say what???????
Imminent Danger seems appropriate!!!!
Great job.
Would you please freepmail me, the html code of the click al Kerry photo to insure that freepers can get to that link.
The browser on SBC/Yahoo will not allow me to copy sites.
Thanks.
The third Senate statement is the one to which Senator Frist probably referred regarding Saddam Hussein and terrorist support. Maybe I'm reading too much into it (keep hearing that awful speaking style of sKerry's), but he appears to be laying the blame for 1998 inaction at the feet of President Bush.
#1
Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, we cannot undo the grave events that took place on Tuesday or bring back the loved ones that so many families have lost or quickly restore the sense of security that Americans took for granted. But with resolve and determination we can take actions to root out those who perpetrated these dastardly and heretofore unimaginable events.
There should be no question in the minds of those who are responsible for these attacks, or in the minds of those who have aided and abetted them, that the United States will take all necessary and appropriate steps to respond and to prevent them from undertaking additional attacks against our country. In keeping with our very values that were under attack this week, we must respond rationally and judiciously, not out of anger and sadness.
This resolution leaves no doubt that the Congress is united in full support of the President. We have given the President the authority that he needs to respond to this unprecedented attack on American citizens on U.S. soil. This resolution allows the President to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or individuals who are responsible for this attack and against those who helped or harbored them. But it does not give the President a blanket approval to take military action against others under the guise of fighting international terrorism. It is not an open-ended authorization to use force in circumstances beyond those we face today. Under the Constitution the President has the authority to act if there is an imminent attack on the United States. That authority is recognized in this resolution.
The tragedy our Nation experienced this week brought home to every American the reality of terrorism. Now we must respond. That response must be forceful and unequivocal. I am confident it will be.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
#2
PROBLEMS WITH THE FBI -- (Senate - October 04, 2001)
[Page: S10268] GPO's PDF ---
Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Illinois for his comments. He could not be more correct about the problems with the FBI. In fact, the FBI had a lot of information regarding the potential of the events on September 11 4 and 5 years ago, I have learned, in certain compartments. Regrettably, just because of the compartmentalization and the process, that information was never adequately followed up on, as I think we will learn over the course of the next few months. We regret that.
There needs to be an enormous amount of work done in the coordination of the processing of information between the CIA and the FBI. The FBI, obviously, has been much more focused on prosecuting crimes after they happen and not necessarily on taking information and evaluating it in the context of a crime that may happen. The CIA has been much more involved in the processing of information. Their human intelligence component in the CIA has been so devastated in the last 10, 15 years, that we are light years behind where we ought to be.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
#3
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts is recognized for up to 45 minutes.
Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I thank my good friend from Arizona for his introduction and for his generous comments about the role that Senator Hagel and I have played.
My colleague, Senator Hagel, and I share seats on the Foreign Relations Committee. We have both followed this issue for a long period of time.
Obviously, with respect to an issue that might take Americans to war, we deserve time, and there is no more important debate to be had on the floor of the Senate. It is in the greatest traditions of this institution, and I am proud to take part in that debate now.
This is a debate that should be conducted without regard to parties, to politics, to labels. It is a debate that has to come from the gut of each and every Member, and I am confident that it does. I know for Senator Hagel, Senator McCain, and myself, when we pick up the newspapers and read about the residuals of the Vietnam war, there is a particular sensitivity because I do not think any of us feel a residual with respect to the choices we are making now.
[Page: S10171] GPO's PDF
I know for myself back in that period of time, even as I protested the war, I wrote that if my Nation was again threatened and Americans made the decision we needed to defend ourselves, I would be among the first to put on a uniform again and go and do that.
We are facing a very different world today than we have ever faced before. September 11 changed a lot, but other things have changed: Globalization, technology, a smaller planet, the difficulties of radical fundamentalism, the crosscurrents of religion and politics. We are living in an age where the dangers are different and they require a different response, different thinking, and different approaches than we have applied in the past.
Most importantly, it is a time when international institutions must rise to the occasion and seek new authority and a new measure of respect.
In approaching the question of this resolution, I wish the timing were different. I wish for the sake of the country we were not here now at this moment. There are legitimate questions about that timing. But none of the underlying realities of the threat, none of the underlying realities of the choices we face are altered because they are, in fact, the same as they were in 1991 when we discovered those weapons when the teams went in, and in 1998 when the teams were kicked out.
With respect to Saddam Hussein and the threat he presents, we must ask ourselves a simple question: Why? Why is Saddam Hussein pursuing weapons that most nations have agreed to limit or give up? Why is Saddam Hussein guilty of breaking his own cease-fire agreement with the international community? Why is Saddam Hussein attempting to develop nuclear weapons when most nations don't even try, and responsible nations that have them attempt to limit their potential for disaster? Why did Saddam Hussein threaten and provoke? Why does he develop missiles that exceed allowable limits? Why did Saddam Hussein lie and deceive the inspection teams previously? Why did Saddam Hussein not account for all of the weapons of mass destruction which UNSCOM identified? Why is he seeking to develop unmanned airborne vehicles for delivery of biological agents?
Does he do all of these things because he wants to live by international standards of behavior? Because he respects international law? Because he is a nice guy underneath it all and the world should trust him?
It would be naive to the point of grave danger not to believe that, left to his own devices, Saddam Hussein will provoke, misjudge, or stumble into a future, more dangerous confrontation with the civilized world. He has as much as promised it. He has already created a stunning track record of miscalculation. He miscalculated an 8-year war with Iran. He miscalculated the invasion of Kuwait. He miscalculated America's responses to it. He miscalculated the result of setting oil rigs on fire. He miscalculated the impact of sending Scuds into Israel. He miscalculated his own military might. He miscalculated the Arab world's response to his plight. He miscalculated in attempting an assassination of a former President of the United States. And he is miscalculating now America's judgments about his miscalculations.
All those miscalculations are compounded by the rest of history. A brutal, oppressive dictator, guilty of personally murdering and condoning murder and torture, grotesque violence against women, execution of political opponents, a war criminal who used chemical weapons against another nation and, of course, as we know, against his own people, the Kurds. He has diverted funds from the Oil-for-Food program, intended by the international community to go to his own people. He has supported and harbored terrorist groups, particularly radical Palestinian groups such as Abu Nidal, and he has given money to families of suicide murderers in Israel.
I mention these not because they are a cause to go to war in and of themselves, as the President previously suggested, but because they tell a lot about the threat of the weapons of mass destruction and the nature of this man. We should not go to war because these things are in his past, but we should be prepared to go to war because of what they tell us about the future. It is the total of all of these acts that provided the foundation for the world's determination in 1991 at the end of the gulf war that Saddam Hussein must:
..... unconditionally accept the destruction, removal, or rendering harmless underinternational supervision of his chemical and biological weapons and ballistic missile delivery systems ..... [and] unconditionally agree not to acquire or develop nuclear weapons or nuclear weapon-usable material.
Saddam Hussein signed that agreement. Saddam Hussein is in office today because of that agreement. It is the only reason he survived in 1991. In 1991, the world collectively made a judgment that this man should not have weapons of mass destruction. And we are here today in the year 2002 with an uninspected 4-year interval during which time we know through intelligence he not only has kept them, but he continues to grow them.
I believe the record of Saddam Hussein's ruthless, reckless breach of international values and standards of behavior which is at the core of the cease-fire agreement, with no reach, no stretch, is cause enough for the world community to hold him accountable by use of force, if necessary. The threat of Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction is real, but as I said, it is not new. It has been with us since the end of that war, and particularly in the last 4 years we know after Operation Desert Fox failed to force him to reaccept them, that he has continued to build those weapons.
He has had a free hand for 4 years to reconstitute these weapons, allowing the world, during the interval, to lose the focus we had on weapons of mass destruction and the issue of proliferation.
The Senate worked to urge action in early 1998. I joined with Senator McCain, Senator Hagel, and other Senators, in a resolution urging the President to ``take all necessary and appropriate actions to respond to the threat posed by Iraq's refusal to end his weapons of mass destruction program.'' That was 1998 that we thought we needed a more serious response.
Later in the year, Congress enacted legislation declaring Iraq in material, unacceptable breach of its disarmament obligations and urging the President to take appropriate action to bring Iraq into compliance. In fact, had we done so, President Bush could well have taken his office, backed by our sense of urgency about holding Saddam Hussein accountable and, with an international United Nations, backed a multilateral stamp of approval record on a clear demand for the disarmament of Saddam Hussein's Iraq. We could have had that and we would not be here debating this today. But the administration missed an opportunity 2 years ago and particularly a year ago after September 11. They regrettably, and even clumsily, complicated their own case. The events of September 11 created new understanding of the terrorist threat and the degree to which every nation is vulnerable.
That understanding enabled the administration to form a broad and impressive coalition against terrorism. Had the administration tried then to capitalize on this unity of spirit to build a coalition to disarm Iraq, we would not be here in the pressing days before an election, late in this year, debating this now. The administration's decision to engage on this issue now, rather than a year ago or earlier, and the manner in which it has engaged, has politicized and complicated the national debate and raised questions about the credibility of their case.
By beginning its public discourse with talk of invasion and regime change, the administration raised doubts about their bona fides on the most legitimate justification for war--that in the post-September 11 world the unrestrained threat of weapons of mass destruction in the hands of Saddam Hussein is unacceptable, and his refusal to allow U.N. inspectors to return was in blatant violation of the 1991 cease-fire agreement that left him in power. By casting about in an unfocused, undisciplined, overly public, internal debate for a rationale for war, the administration complicated their case, confused the American public, and compromised America's credibility in the eyes of the world community. By engaging in hasty war talk rather than focusing on the central issue of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, the administration placed doubts in the
[Page: S10172] GPO's PDF
Against this disarray, it is not surprising that tough questions began to be asked and critics began to emerge.
Indeed over the course of the last 6 weeks some of the strongest and most thoughtful questioning of our Nation's Iraq policy has come from what some observers would say are unlikely sources: Senators like CHUCK HAGEL and DICK LUGAR, former Bush Administration national security experts including Brent Scowcroft and James Baker, and distinguished military voices including General Shalikashvili. They are asking the tough questions which must be answered before--and not after--you commit a nation to a course that may well lead to war. They know from their years of experience, whether on the battlefield as soldiers, in the Senate, or at the highest levels of public diplomacy, that you build the consent of the American people to sustain military confrontation by asking questions, not avoiding them. Criticism and questions do not reflect a lack of patriotism--they demonstrate the strength and core values of our American democracy.
It is love of country, and it is defined by defense of those policies that protect and defend our country.
Writing in the New York Times in early September, I argued that the American people would never accept the legitimacy of this war or give their consent to it unless the administration first presented detailed evidence of the threat of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and proved that it had exhausted all other options to protect our national security. I laid out a series of steps that the administration must take for the legitimacy of our cause and our ultimate success in Iraq--seek the advice and approval of Congress after laying out the evidence and making the case, and work with our allies to seek full enforcement of the existing cease-fire agreement while simultaneously offering Iraq a clear ultimatum: accept rigorous inspections without negotiation or compromise and without condition.
Why did Kerry phrase this in this manner? He seems to be saying that if the Bush administration had acted on Iraq EARLIER that 9/11 might not have happened.
Is that your reading?
And despite what he says about "international cooperation and UN approval", blah blah blah, in 1997 he was on Crossfire and said that Clinton could take on Iraq WITHOUT approval from the UN Security Council and it would show leadership! (link provided on request) LOL
It's been posted so many times I figure everyone has seen it by now.
Nice research!
It's a shame that the TV and Cable newsrooms hide his past.
They just want this traitor to win the election.
I read it the same way, Peach. Evidently he doesn't know there's a record of what he says.
"They just want this traitor to win the election."
Yes.
Thanks- I'll link to, and email, your finds.
You're welcome!
Great find and reposting.
This alone is proof about how al Querry has reversed himself.
What the hell happened to the guy?
Backhoe, just incase you don't have this in your index.
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