Posted on 09/26/2002 4:21:24 PM PDT by shockjock
September 26, 2002
THOMPSON ON WAY TO IRAQ TO PUSH COMPLIANCE
By Paul Payne The Press Democrat
North Coast Rep. Mike Thompson and two congressional colleagues boarded a plane Wednesday for Iraq, where they will meet top officials and urge full compliance with U.N. weapons inspectors.
The six-day trip coincides with the intensifying debate in Washington over President Bush's request for a congressional resolution supporting military action against Iraq and over the language Congress will accept in the resolution.
Congressional leaders have promised a vote by mid-October, and the House is expected to start debating the resolution next week.
Thompson, D-St. Helena, opposes a pre-emptive military strike against Iraq but also has promised to consider additional information.
He decided Wednesday to join Reps. Jim McDermott, D-Wash., and David Bonior, D-Mich., who had organized the trip with humanitarian groups from their districts.
They are slated to arrive in Baghdad on Friday and return to Washington on Tuesday.
McDermott is a leader of a group of about 25 liberal House members, including Bonior and Rep. Lynn Woolsey, D-Petaluma, who have been trying to rally congressional opposition to military action in Iraq.
In talks with Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz and others, Thompson and the other congressmen will ask the Iraqis to allow inspectors "immediate and unfettered access" to sites that may contain nuclear arsenals or other weapons of mass destruction, according to a Thompson news release.
"We'll tell him you don't have any choice but to open up to inspections," McDermott told Hearst Newspapers. "There might be some of us in the House who don't want to go to war. But if Iraq doesn't open up and let the inspectors go in, that could lead to war."
The congressmen also will tour hospitals, a facility where Iraqi oil is exchanged for imported food and a water filtration plant to determine the type of reconstruction aid Iraq might need after a war with the United States.
Classified briefings in Washington have so far left questions about Iraq's ability to survive an attack, Thompson said in a statement.
"There is ... a critical lack of information regarding what kind of Iraq will be left standing after a regime change and how its condition will impact our national security," he said. "The more we can learn, the better our ability will be to work with our allies and bring long-term stability to the region."
Thompson's chief of staff, Ed Matovcik, said Thompson directed his staff Wednesday morning to make arrangements for him to accompany Bonior and McDermott. The trip was approved by the State Department.
"Mike really had a strong desire to go over and see for himself," Matovcik said. "He wasn't getting his questions answered. He may not get his questions answered over there. But the more you learn, the better decision you can make."
Although Thompson has opposed President Bush's call for unilateral action, he hasn't allied himself with the House members urging their colleagues to oppose any military action in Iraq.
Matovcik said it was coincidental that Thompson was accompanying Bonior and McDermott on the trip.
"These two guys just happened to be going," he said. "Their agendas may be different."
White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer urged the three congressmen to pitch the Bush administration's case for Iraqi compliance during their visit.
"While they are there, certainly it would be helpful if they made the case about Iraq's failure to comply (and) the repression of minorities," Fleischer said. "There's a strong case to be made about the need to bring Saddam Hussein into compliance."
Fleischer declined to criticize the trip, saying "members of Congress have every right in the world to take a stand and to believe in what they do."
The delegation flew Wednesday from Washington to Paris via New York and will go to Amman, Jordan, before flying to Baghdad, Matovcik said.
The lawmakers are leading a nine-member delegation of humanitarian relief officials planning to deliver medical supplies and other relief supplies to Iraq -- a delivery that sponsors said would violate U.S. sanctions law, Hearst Newspapers reported.
The delegation scheduled meetings in Iraq with the local UNICEF director and the director of the U.N. oil-for-food program in Iraq. The relief venture was backed by the Interfaith Network of Concern for the People of Iraq -- a unit of the Church Council of Greater Seattle -- and the Iraq Expatriate Conference.
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