When Kerry backed unilateral action against Saddam.
Record Run
NRO
By Joel C. Rosenberg
Over the weekend, Sen. John Kerry (D., Mass.) again attacked President Bush's decision to go to war with Iraq, even though Kerry voted to authorize military force. Kerry said the president "went to war without building a legitimate coalition, without exhausting the remedies of the United Nations and not as a last resort. And that's why I was upset about it....The president bum-rushed the thing."
But Kerry gave a speech on the floor of the United States Senate in 1997 in which he urged the Clinton-Gore administration to deal with Saddam's "ominous" and "grave" threat of weapons of mass destruction decisively, even if the U.S. allies did not agree and the U.S. had to act on a "unilateral basis."
In that speech, on November 9, 1997, titled "We Must be Firm with Saddam Hussein," Kerry made points he'd probably like to leave in his past:
Kerry made the case that Saddam's WMD programs were a serious threat: "It is not possible to overstate the ominous implications for the Middle East if Saddam were to develop and successfully militarize and deploy potent biological weapons. We can all imagine the consequences. Extremely small quantities of several known biological weapons have the capability to exterminate the entire population of cities the size of Tel Aviv or Jerusalem. These could be delivered by ballistic missile, but they also could be delivered by much more pedestrian means; aerosol applicators on commercial trucks easily could suffice. If Saddam were to develop and then deploy usable atomic weapons, the same holds true."
Kerry warned if Saddam were not properly dealt with, a "world-threatening inferno" could result. "Were Israel to find itself under constant threat of potent biological or nuclear attack, the current low threshold for armed conflict in the Middle East that easily could escalate into a world-threatening inferno would become even more of a hair trigger. "
Kerry argued in 1997 that time to deal with Saddam was running out. "Saddam Hussein has continued to push international patience to the very edge."
Kerry conceded that some our allies might not fully understand or be worried about the danger posed by Saddam. "We must not presume that these conclusions automatically will be accepted by every one of our allies, some of which have different interests both in the region and elsewhere, or will be of the same degree of concern to them that they are to the U.S."
But be that as it may, Kerry argued that even if our key allies should lack resolve in dealing with Saddam, the U.S. should be decisive. "Should the resolve of our allies wane to pursue this matter until an acceptable inspection process has been reinstituted...the United States must not lose its resolve to take action."
Kerry even argued that the U.S. would be justified in acting alone.
"Were its willingness to serve in these respects to diminish or vanish because of the ability of Saddam to brandish these weapons, then the ability of the United Nations or remnants of the gulf war coalition, or even the United States acting alone, to confront and halt Iraqi aggression would be gravely damaged."
"While our actions should be thoughtfully and carefully determined and structured, while we should always seek to use peaceful and diplomatic means to resolve serious problems before resorting to force, and while we should always seek to take significant international actions on a multilateral rather than a unilateral basis whenever that is possible, if in the final analysis we face what we truly believe to be a grave threat to the well-being of our Nation or the entire world and it cannot be removed peacefully, we must have the courage to do what we believe is right and wise."
Kerry argued for Saddam to pay a grave price: "In my judgment, the Security Council should authorize a strong U.N. military response that will materially damage, if not totally destroy, as much as possible of the suspected infrastructure for developing and manufacturing weapons of mass destruction, as well as key military command and control nodes. Saddam Hussein should pay a grave price, in a currency that he understands and values, for his unacceptable behavior. This should not be a strike consisting only of a handful of cruise missiles hitting isolated targets primarily of presumed symbolic value."
Again, it's important to note that Kerry made this case for urgency and decisiveness some seven years ago. Yet now he argues the Bush administration "bum-rushed" bringing Saddam and the Iraqi regime to justice.
Will any of this matter to Democratic-primary voters? It may. Howard Dean has been pounding Kerry on his Iraq position and Kerry's lead in New Hampshire now appears to be slipping. The latest Zogby poll puts Dean back at 28 percent — up a full five points in one day — and Kerry at 31 percent.
— Joel C. Rosenberg is the New York Times best-selling author of The Last Jihad and The Last Days. He was a senior aide to Steve Forbes in the 1996 and 2000 elections.
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