Powell Casts Attack on Iraq as 'Liberation'
U.S. Would Emphasize Democracy, 'New Era'
By Peter Slevin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, September 20, 2002; Page A20
URL: washingtonpost.com
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell carried the Bush administration's case against Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to Capitol Hill yesterday and went beyond talk of weapons inspectors and United Nations resolutions to argue that any U.S.-led invasion of Iraq should be seen as an act of "liberation."
Powell, offering a defense of potential U.S. military action against Iraq, told the House International Relations Committee that the United States would seek to persuade Iraqis that an assault on the Hussein regime would bring a "new era" defined by "a government of Iraqis governing Iraqis in a democratic fashion."
"We would make it clear from the very beginning . . . that we're viewing this as a liberation," Powell testified. "That this despotic regime, which has sat on your dreams and your aspirations and your desires, which has subjugated its minorities, which has suppressed the [Shiites] in the south, persecuted the Kurds in the north, gassed its own people, is now gone."
While Powell said President Bush has made no decision about the use of force, he made clear the administration does not expect Hussein to meet U.N. conditions or White House expectations. He told the committee that Hussein cannot be trusted and said the administration would not wait long for him to comply with international demands.
The forceful bid for congressional support won immediate hurrahs from senior committee members, including chairman Henry J. Hyde (R-Ill.) and ranking Democrat Tom Lantos (D-Calif.), although other representatives raised questions. After Powell's lengthy opening statement, Lantos said, "There isn't a single sentence in it with which I would disagree."
Hyde said: "To assume that these terrorists and others will remain unarmed by Saddam is an assumption with a deadly potential. We should not guess the world into annihilation. Our only real option is to act."
Powell has been working long hours to marshal international support for a no-nonsense U.N. Security Council resolution, but his Capitol Hill mission was to win backing closer to home. He had remained largely quiet as Vice President Cheney and national security adviser Condoleezza Rice spoke out dramatically against Hussein, but yesterday he delivered the administration's message with gusto.
Asserting repeatedly that the Iraqi regime had broken its promises and violated world standards on issues from human rights to weapons of mass destruction, Powell told the committee that the United Nations must develop a powerful resolution to force Iraq to disarm. To rely on existing resolutions, he said, would be a "recipe for failure."
Powell at the same time was pessimistic about the chances for Hussein's compliance. Turning to congressional questions about the potential use of force to oust the Iraqi leader, he noted favorably that 27,000 American soldiers drove Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega from power in a single day in 1989.
A U.S.-led invasion of Iraq would win the support of most Iraqis, Powell predicted. When Iraqis see the potential of harnessing the country's oil wealth, playing a role in government and shedding international pariah status, he said, "attitudes can be changed rather quickly."
Committee members focused their questions less on weapons inspections and events at the U.N. than on the implications of using military force. A number of skeptics questioned the justification for military action against Hussein. Several asked whether the administration was prepared to simultaneously sustain a battle for the future of Iraq and the rebuilding of Afghanistan.
Rep. Howard L. Berman (D-Calif.) said he would support Bush's use of "all necessary means" against Hussein. But he warned that an opportunity to transform Iraq and "demonstrate that this is not us against the Arab world," would be lost if the administration failed to commit money and manpower for the long haul.
"We understand the implications of such a change-of-regime action," Powell replied, "and have made a commitment to ourselves, anyway, as we start down this road, that we would have obligations to see it through."
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