Rep. Lee
Ms. LEE. Mr. Speaker, today our Nation is debating the very profound question of war and peace and the structure and nature of international relations in the 21st century.
Before us today is the serious and fundamental question of life and death: whether or not this Congress will give the President authority to commit this Nation to war.
Always a question of the greatest importance, our decision today is further weighted by the fact that we are being asked to sanction a new foreign policy doctrine that gives the President the power to launch a unilateral and preemptive first strike against Iraq before we have utilized our diplomatic options.
My amendment provides an option and the time to pursue it. Its goal is to give the United Nations inspections process a chance to work. It provides an option short of war with the objective of protecting the American people and the world from any threat posed by Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.
The amendment urges the United States to reengage the diplomatic process, and it stresses our government's commitment to eliminating any Iraqi weapons of mass destruction through United Nations inspections and enhanced containment.
It emphasizes the potentially dangerous and disastrous long-term consequences for the United States of codifying the President's announced doctrine of preemption.
The administration's resolution forecloses alternatives to war before we have even tried to pursue them.
We do not need to rush to war, and we should not rush to war. If what we are worried about is the defense of the United States and its people, we do not need this resolution.
If the United States truly faced an imminent attack from anywhere, the President has all of the authority in the world to ensure our defense based on the Constitution, the War Powers Act and the United Nations Charter.
Our own intelligence agencies report that there is currently little chance of chemical and biological attack from Saddam Hussein on U.S. forces or territories. But they emphasize that an attack could become much more likely if Iraq believes that it is about to be attacked. This is a frightening and dangerous potential consequence that requires sober thought and careful reflection.
President Bush's doctrine of preemption violates international law, the United Nations Charter and our own long-term security interests. It will set a precedent that could come back to haunt us.
Do we want to see our claim to preemption echoed by other countries maintaining that they perceive similar threats? India or Pakistan? China or Taiwan? Russia or Georgia?
I would submit that we would have little moral authority to urge other countries to resist launching preemptive strikes themselves. This approach threatens to destabilize the Middle East, unleash new forces of terrorism and instability and completely derail any prospects for peace in the region.
Unilateralism is not the answer. Iraqi weapons of mass destruction are a problem to the world community, and we must confront it and we should do so through the United Nations. Multilateralism and steadfast commitment to international law should be the guiding principle as we move into the 21st century.
As I said, the purpose of my amendment is to let the United Nations do its work. Let us give inspections and other containment mechanisms a chance to succeed once again. Inspections did make real progress in eliminating weapons of mass destruction in the 1990s despite Saddam Hussein's best effort at obstruction and deceit. U.N. inspectors destroyed large stockpiles of chemical weapons, missiles and weapons of mass destruction. We can and should renew and expand this process.
In addition to inspections, we should improve border monitoring through an enhanced containment system to prevent shipments of nuclear materials or other weapons to Iraq. And we should install surveillance technology on the border to detect such materials.
As part of enhanced containment, we should work with the countries bordering Iraq and with regional seaports to ensure that United Nations Security Council resolutions are enforced, and we should plug holes in the current arms embargo blanket. We should also work on nonproliferation efforts globally to secure weapons materials.
All of these are diplomatic options that we can and should undertake and which can lead to success.
What we are doing today is building the framework for 21st century international relations. It will either be a framework of unilateralism and insecurity or multilateral cooperation and security. It is our choice.
During the Cold War, the words “first strike” filled us with fear. They still should.
I am really appalled that a democracy, our democracy, is contemplating taking such a fearsome step and really setting such a terrible international precedent that could be devastating for global stability and for our own moral authority.
We are contemplating sending our young men and women to war where they will be doing the killing and the dying. And we, as representatives of the American people, have no idea where this action will take us, where it will end and what price we will pay in terms of lives and resources. This too should cause us to pause. We have choices, however, and we have an obligation to pursue them, to give U.N. inspections and enhanced containment a chance to work.
What this resolution does state very clearly and firmly is that the United States will work to disarm Iraq through United Nations inspections and other diplomatic tools. It states that we reject the doctrine of preemption, and it reaffirms our commitment to our own security and national interests through multilateral diplomacy, not unilateral attack.
I urge you to protect our national interests by giving the United Nations a chance by supporting this amendment.
It does not foreclose any future options.
Source: Congressional Record for October 10, 2002