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Politics : Stockman Scott's Political Debate Porch -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mannie who wrote (6852)	9/20/2002 2:07:16 PM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 89467

Hasty Iraq decision risks shortchanging vital debate Op/Ed - USA TODAY Fri Sep 20, 7:29 AM ET story.news.yahoo.com As U.S. allies backpedal from a showdown with Saddam Hussein ( news - web sites), President Bush ( news - web sites) is shifting gears, too. Instead of counting on the United Nations ( news - web sites) to deal effectively with the Iraqi leader, Bush asked Congress on Thursday for a hurry-up vote giving him authority to oust the dictator from power. The president correctly recognizes that such a bold step requires the approval of the people's representatives. But in prodding lawmakers to act in such haste, Bush risks depriving the public of the full debate a potential war with Iraq demands. Indeed, the most pressing deadline weighing on members of Congress comes from their desire to rush home in two weeks to campaign for re-election. Republicans see a war vote as the ticket to keeping a majority in the House and winning back the Senate. Democrats want the vote out of the way to focus instead on what they think is their winning issue: the weak economy. Both parties are rising to the administration's bait, in which a pre-Election Day vote on a war resolution has been sold as a patriotic litmus test. Surely politicking can wait until the reasons for confronting Saddam and the perils of a conflict are fully aired, even if it means lawmakers have to stay in session longer. Bush has made the case that Saddam is a bad guy who can't be trusted. There's plenty of room for argument, however, as to whether the Iraqi leader poses an imminent threat. As USA TODAY reported this week, even Bush's own intelligence agencies don't back administration claims that Saddam has stockpiled chemical and biological weapons, is on the verge of acquiring a nuclear bomb and has links to al-Qaeda terrorists. A war's effects on the anti-terror campaign, Middle East oil supplies and the U.S. role in shaping a post-Saddam Iraq also require careful consideration. Recent history shows the dangers that occur when Congress serves as a rubber stamp for a president bent on war, and the benefits of thoughtful debate. In 1964, President Lyndon Johnson asked a Congress in the midst of a political campaign for an open-ended endorsement of military action against North Vietnam. He got it in a flash. The Tonkin Gulf Resolution, which launched the Vietnam War, was rushed through Congress in hours, with only two dissenting votes. Many lawmakers later cited that hasty vote as their greatest regret. In 1991, by contrast, when the first President Bush asked Congress to back military force to expel Iraqi troops from Kuwait, lawmakers were already engaged in a nationally televised debate lasting more than a week over whether to back the biggest military campaign since the troubling Vietnam War. Though Bush already had troops poised for action, the debate still showed Congress at its finest and helped unite the nation. The Founding Fathers, aware that a president alone shouldn't decide to send the country to war, empowered Congress to weigh the consequences carefully. By refusing to act in haste, Congress can best serve the president -- and the country.

To: Mannie who wrote (6852)	9/20/2002 2:12:41 PM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 89467

<<...Hope you have a great weekend planned...>> Scott: I've been busy with a consulting project BUT I'm scheduled to move next Friday...This weekend I'll spend a lot of time streamlining my life and packing. I'm only moving about 10 blocks from where I currently live. Yet, I'm cutting my personal burn rate quite a bit...I think its time to downsize and move within a few blocks of my healthclub (that way I'll have NO excuses about staying in shape or playing a lot of paddle tennis this winter <G>). Hope you enjoy the weekend out on the Northwestern Front. regards, -Scott

To: Mannie who wrote (6852)	9/20/2002 2:22:21 PM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 89467

Resisting Regime Change By Thomas P. Healy September 13, 2002 In These Times inthesetimes.com Perhaps it’s a sign of these bizarre times that the country’s most outspoken critic of the Bush administration’s plan to invade Iraq is an avowed hawk. For several months now, ex-Marine Scott Ritter, who served as the chief U.N. weapons inspector in Iraq until 1998, has relentlessly presented arguments against invading Iraq in talks around the country, in op-ed pieces in major newspapers, and on radio and television. You won’t find the 41-year-old son of a career Army officer putting flowers in the ends of gun barrels, but his blunt, forceful arguments might be persuasive enough to gain wider attention for opposition to the administration’s press toward war. Ritter spoke with In These Times during a visit to Indianapolis. What are your main objections to a U.S. invasion of Iraq? I am not a peace activist. I am not a pacifist. I am a warrior. I loved the Marine Corps—we stood for serving our country! But there is a time and a place to fight to defend this country. We must defend our country if we are threatened. If Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, then clearly Saddam Hussein must be dealt with. But we are not at risk from weapons of mass destruction from Saddam Hussein—there’s no evidence. If the United States unilaterally invades Iraq, we will go to war as a rogue nation ourselves and join the short list that includes North Korea, which invaded South Korea, and Saddam Hussein, who invaded Kuwait. And I don’t want to be on that list. In 1991, at the end of the Gulf War, the United Nations set up a special commission to monitor the destruction of Iraq’s missiles and weapons of mass destruction. How effective were the U.N. inspectors? UNSCOM inspectors were the best forensic investigators in the world. We were pretty good at doing our job. By 1996 we were able to ascertain that 90 to 95 percent of Iraq’s capabilities were destroyed. When Richard Butler came on board in 1997, we had already fundamentally disarmed Iraq. Then you were kicked out. Saddam Hussein didn’t kick out the U.N. inspectors. They were ordered out by the U.S. government, which then used information they provided to bomb 100 locations that had nothing to do with weapons of mass destruction. So the weapons inspectors were used by the United States. This is the reality: When Madeleine Albright called up Richard Butler and said, “Jump!” Richard Butler always said, “How high?” It was obvious from day one. After you resigned from UNSCOM in August 1998, you testified before Congress that if inspectors were removed from Iraq, they would have the capacity to reconstitute weapons of mass destruction. Isn’t that a legitimate concern now? Just because Iraq has had time to do bad things doesn’t mean they’ve done them. Iraq must be found to have weapons of mass destruction. Do economic interests play a factor in the war effort? Talk to any businessman about Iraq. This is the worst thing for business. This is stupid. Actually, oil prices are going up. Iraq is currently pumping to capacity based upon the available pumping technology. But if they upgraded their capacity, they could double or triple output. Amer Muhammad Rasheed, the Iraqi oil minister, has plans for Iraqi oil production that are very ambitious. American oil companies right now are playing it both ways. We have American oil executives going to an Amman, Jordan, meeting with Iraqi government officials to discuss a post-sanctions environment. You also have American oil companies sitting down with Ahmed Chalabi, the Iraqi opposition leader, talking about a post-regime economic environment. And they come from the same company. So they’re hedging their bets. So why the headlong rush to war? I think this is more about the people surrounding George W. Bush—Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, John Bolton, Richard Perle—who have committed their political and intellectual capital to regime removal. They’ve invested in this so much that they’ve boxed themselves into a rhetorical and ideological corner where they have no ability to maneuver. We’ve trapped ourselves with our own rhetoric, with our own speculations, with our own ideology, our own politics. I think that’s what this is all about. This is about politics. If any other head of state used the term “regime change” it would be called terrorism. It is terrorism. As you travel the country, what level of awareness do you see in the American people about this issue? I think the vast majority of Americans are just tragically ignorant—not just about Iraq, but about the rest of the world as a whole. They are susceptible to the kind of propagandistic manipulation that’s taking place.