(continued)
Today, America is being stampeded into a new undeclared war, against
Iraq. Thus it is a time for truth – a time for Congress to do its
duty, and debate and decide on war or peace. We do not need to have
our politics poisoned for yet another generation by the mutual
recriminations of a War Party and a Peace Party in the aftermath of
yet another undeclared war. Questions need answering.
Was Saddam involved in the massacres of Sept. 11? Was he behind the
anthrax attacks? Is he harboring terrorist cells of al-Qaida? Is he
preparing nuclear or bio-terror weapons to attack us? If the answer
is "Yes," let Congress lay out the evidence before the nation and
empower the president to take us to war.
Henry Hyde and Joe Biden, chairmen respectively of the House and
Senate foreign relations committees, should assume their duty to the
nation and history, and assert Congress' rightful role in the
decision on war or peace. Both have said that they oppose a war on
Iraq. But that is not enough.
On Sunday, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice seemed to
assert that President Bush had the justification and right to take us
to war against Saddam, should he so choose. But where did he get this
authority? When did Congress cede it to him, or authorize U.S.
attacks on the other Arab states on the War Party's enemies list?
While the United States could launch air strikes on Iraq at any
moment, the ground troops needed for an invasion are not in place.
And given the halving of U.S. forces since Desert Storm, it would
take months before they are ready to march – time enough for reasoned
debate.
Indeed, the semi-hysteria of the War Party suggests it does not have
the evidence to convict Saddam of Sept. 11, and a war on Iraq is but
the next move on the little chessboards of empire they carry about in
their book bags. But a war on Iraq could ravage our relations with
Britain, Russia and NATO; shatter the Afghan war coalition; inflame
the Arab street; and destabilize our Arab allies, Jordan, Egypt and
Saudi Arabia. Should the Saudi monarchy fall to a revolution as a
result of an attack on Iraq, Bush would have lost the oil storehouse
his father went to war to defend in 1991.
It's time for Congress to debate again Iraq and Saddam Hussein. Is it
to be containment or war? If it is to be war, we have a right to know
why, and to hold accountable those who take us into war. No more
Munichs, no more Yaltas, Bush said. Right he is. But let us add:
No more undeclared wars. No more presidential wars.