The democrats are such a bunch of boobs, they don't agree with what they have agreed with...
Don't bother to agree with me, I've already changed my mind!
Iraq War Support Not So Elusive in Congress!
Friday, March 07, 2003
WASHINGTON — Hawks and doves in the war against Iraq gathered on the Senate floor Friday to debate the necessity and the wisdom of war, particularly in the face of opposition from key U.N. Security Council members.
Republicans backed President Bush, who has been ambling toward war for six months. They say diplomacy has failed and Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein has no intention of disarming.
"We don't need partners on this one. We don't need it. I believe we have right on our side and we have might on our side and we should use that might for the best interest of the world in the future," said Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, which will be doling out the money to fight a war.
But a handful of Democrats dug in their heels, and said the president needs to be more patient. The time for action, they declare, has not arrived.
"What if Al Qaeda were to time their next terrorist attack for the day we go to war?" asked Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., one of 23 Democrats in the Senate who voted in October against a resolution authorizing President Bush to use force against Saddam with or without U.N. support.
Democrats demanded Friday's debate time on Iraq, knowing they have no official vote and angry that they voted in October. They think the vote six months ago has led them to a marginalized position now, with no real power but the capacity to talk against the war.
But having called for the time Friday, only two Democrats showed up. Sen. Chris Dodd of Connecticut said he wasn't exactly against force, but he was against haste.
"I won't take a back seat to anybody in my concern about Saddam Hussein. I would support the resolution again today if it were in front of me. But I honestly believe, Mr. President, that it's in our interests to try to rebuild this — to get diplomacy back on the front burner here and to give that a chance to work. And if it doesn't, we go to war. But we ought not to jump to war without giving this an opportunity, a chance to work a bit longer," he said.
The debate came one day after Bush used a news conference to prepare the nation for war in Iraq, and as the United Nations Security Council heard an update from weapons inspectors charged with monitoring Iraqi compliance with international disarmament demands.
That report, which concluded that Iraq has carried out a "substantial measure" of the U.N.'s disarmament demands, and the Security Council debate that followed stirred some resentment among Republicans, who said the international body is reducing itself to insignificance.
"If the U.N. wishes to become a spineless debating society, that's its right. If it or anyone else believes that it can pervert international law to contain the legitimate use of American force for the protection of our national security, then it will begin the 21st century on its self-imposed decline into irrelevance," said Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah.
Republicans, who numbered many on the Senate floor, also came out in force for force.
"Time is not on our side," said Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner of Virginia. "The failure of the U.S. and the coalition of willing nations, principally Great Britain, not to act, is not in our interest. The price of inaction is far greater than the price of action."
The Senate's majority leader also praised the coalition of the willing and accused European naysayers of forgetting U.S. sacrifice for them in World War II.
"Some of our erstwhile allies would be well-advised to recall that their own freedom was regained by such courage and conviction," said Sen. Bill Frist, R-Tenn.
"I would remind them that their own liberation in World War II was a less popular undertaking than a possible war in Iraq," added Frist, who cited a string of public opinion polls taken from 1939 to mid-1941 as evidence.
By all accounts, lawmakers believe that war could start within a couple weeks, and while neither political party has an official position on Iraq, some Democrats took the last-minute effort to state a position that they hopes will compel public opinion to force the president to change his policies. |
