Date: 2004-03-17
Speaker: VAN HOLLEN (democrat)
Chamber: H

Mr. Speaker. this is a deceitful resolution not for what it says. but for what it does not say. It is unfortunate that our Republican colleagues would once again use an issue that unites all Americanssupport for our troops--into a naked political stunt that attempts to rewrite history in a divisive manner. The American people should understand that the Republican leadership in this House has prevented any Member of Congress from offering any change to this resolution. The main defect of this resolution is that it tells only a small part of the story about Iraq. In an obvious attempt to change the subject. the resolution contains absolutely no mention of the primary justification President Bush gave for going to war in Iraq--the alleged existence of stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction. Instead. the resolution attempts to justify the decision for war on humanitarian grounds alone. It cites. among other things. Saddam Husseins use of chemical weapons against Iraqs Kurdish citizens in 1988. No one needs to tell me about Saddam Husseins human rights abuses against the Kurds. In 1988. at the end of the IranIraq war. I traveled to the IraqTurkish border as a staffer on the U.S. Senate Foreign relations Committee with my colleague Peter Galbraith. At that time. thousands of Kurds were fleeing across the border to seek refuge in Turkey. We interviewed hundreds of those refugees and documented Iraqs use of chemical weapons against the Kurdish people. Our report formed the basis for legislation to impose economic sanctions against Iraq for its use of chemical weapons against the Kurds. The bill passed the United States Senate. but the Reagan Administration. which included many of the key officials now in the Bush administration. opposed and helped block that sanctions legislation from passing. I challenge anyone to explain to me how you can oppose economic sanctions in 1988 in response to Iraqs use of chemical weapons against civilians and then today turn around and say that those same actions are the reason the United States went to war in 2003. Moreover. if Saddam Husseins use of chemical weapons against his own people was the reason for military action. we should have finished the job during the Persian Gulf War in 1991. Iraq has not used chemical weapons since 1988. since the time my colleague Peter Galbraith and I went to the IraqTurkish border at the end of the IranIraq war. But 3 years later in 1991. not only did we not remove Hussein in Baghdad. but at the end of the war the United States looked the other way for many days while Saddam Hussein turned his guns on the Shias in the south and the Kurds in the north. This history exposes the hypocrisy of this attempt to rewrite history in order to change the argument for going to war in Iraq in 2003. The fact is that the Bush Administration told the American people that we had to go to war because Saddam Hussein currently possessed stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction and posed an imminent threat to the United States. When the U.N. inspectors asked for additional time to determine whether Iraq possessed stockpiles of such weapons. the Administration rejected the request and went to war. We now know that--based on the report of Chief U.S. weapons inspector. David Kay. that to date no stockpiles of chemical. biological or nuclear weapons have been found in Iraq. This resolution says nothing about the serious blow to U.S. credibility and security around the world caused by the Administrations misuse and abuse of intelligence information. The Republican leadership would like .to equate support for our troops in Iraq with support for the Presidents decision to go to war vin Iraq. But my constituents and the American people deserve better than the false choice presented by this resolution. I will not play the game of having to support the Presidents views on Iraq in order to express support our troops. I continue to stand behind our troops and am grateful for their valiant service. I recently returned from a trip to Iraq where I had the honor of meeting with many of the men and women in our Armed Forces. I expressed to them the gratitude of the American people for their sacrifice and for their service to. our country. It is a disservice to our troops that the Republican leadership here would exploit them to attempt to gain partisan political advantage. I have crafted an alternative resolution that presents the part of the story that the Republican leadership would like the American people to forget. This substitute resolution does not change a single word of the underlying resolution. However. it presents a fuller picture of the real story behind the decision to go to war in Iraq. Every one of the "Whereas" clauses in this alternative resolution" is factually accurate and incontroyertible. Why does the Republican leadership want to hide from these facts? Why does it want to prevent the American people from knowing the full story? Why will it not allow this substitute to be voted on? Mr. Speaker. I submit this alternative resolution for the RECORD.