Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Gordon A. Langston who wrote (372993)	3/17/2003 10:17:49 PM
From: steve harris	Respond to of 769670

Gordon, Check this out... senate.gov For Release: March 17, 2003 Lieberman Says Time to Act on Iraq Has Arrived "We cannot and should not allow our broad policy disagreements to become an excuse for avoiding our fundamental constitutional responsibilities to defend American security" WASHINGTON - Senator Joe Lieberman (D-CT) made the following statement today on the crisis with Iraq. "I do not know precisely what will unfold on this critical day. The Bush Administration appears to be giving Saddam a last last chance to peacefully give up his weapons and leave power. But it is increasingly unlikely that this will happen. That is not surprising. For 12 years and through 17 Security Council Resolutions, Saddam has flouted the will of the world and refused to disclose and destroy the weapons of mass destruction that the United Nations has asserted are in his possession. If military action is necessary, the fault will clearly be Saddam's. "If the world fails to stand strong and together, however, and recognize that force is necessary to enforce the United Nations Resolutions, responsibility for that failure will be broadly shared. It will rest, in part, upon the members of the Security Council who lost their will to enforce the resolution approved unanimously last November. And it will result in part from the Bush Administration's unilateralist, divisive diplomacy, which has pushed a lot of the world away from us and this just and necessary cause. Both have been an unfortunate reality these past few months, and both have helped bring us to this difficult and awkward crossroads. "But the question of the moment isn't whether we endorse the foreign policies of the Bush Administration. The question is what America and the world will do about Iraq. We cannot and should not allow our broader policy disagreements to become an excuse for avoiding our fundamental constitutional responsibilities to defend American security and the American people. It is time to come together and support our men and women in uniform and their Commander-in-Chief. "Congress has already spoken on this matter, and we have spoken clearly. In 1998 we passed the Iraqi Liberation Act, and President Clinton signed it, declaring our national policy to be a change of regime in Baghdad. Last October, after extensive debate, the Senate adopted by a vote of 77-23, which authorized the President to' …use the Armed Forces of the United States…to defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq, and to enforce all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq.' "This is a day to face facts. Saddam has weapons of mass destruction. That is a fact. His possession of those weapons is in direct violation of the commitment he made at the end of the Gulf War. That is a fact. He has a history of aggression against his neighbors and a clearly stated desire to dominate the Arab world. That is a fact. He has been brutal to the Iraqi people, causing the death of more than a million of them. That is a fact. He frequently says he wants to avenge the United States for his humiliating defeat 12 years ago. And that is a fact. "All these facts and more explain why many of us were convinced that Saddam Hussein and his weapons posed an unacceptable threat to the stability of his region and the security of the world long before George W. Bush became our President-in fact, even before Bill Clinton became our President. If we do not disarm Saddam now, he will inevitably use his weapons against us or give them to terrorists who will. "In 1991, Democrats and Republicans worked together to enact the Gulf War resolution. In 1998, Democrats and Republicans joined together to enact the Iraqi Liberation Act. Our vote in the fall of 2002 was the culmination of a strong, bipartisan Congressional policy-and a policy that the continued actions of Saddam Hussein flout every day. "Some consider the few token gestures made by the Iraqi regime these past few weeks to be progress. That is naïve. They are guile, obfuscation, and distraction for yet more delay. Saddam's continued failure to prove he has disposed of the weapons the U.N. concluded he had when its inspectors last left in 1998 is a critical and unacceptable fact. Iraqi scientists' refusal to be interviewed outside the country, freed from the clear intimidation of Saddam's police, is another critical and unacceptable fact. "In the final analysis, we must ask ourselves: Are we willing to let thousands of tons of the most deadly weapons remain in the hands of one of the world's most vicious, anti-American dictators, when everything we have tried-except force-has proven incapable of separating his regime from its awful arsenal? My answer is no, we must not. "In 1991 the U.N. Security Council passed Resolution 687 in the wake of a war Saddam Hussein started by invading a peaceful neighbor. In that resolution, we gave Iraq 15 days to declare its illegal weapons and to destroy them. It is now time to put an end to what may well be the longest 15 days in the history of the world. "For 12 years, we have tried every peaceful method known to man, and have been led to a conclusion that only the most wishful thinking can deny: peace with Iraq will come only through its disarmament. Disarmament of this tyrant will not be achieved by peace. That is not a happy conclusion, but it is a just, necessary, and realistic one. "It soon will be time for our nation and our allies to assert our will and weaponry against this dangerous dictator before he asserts his will and weaponry against us. It soon will be time for us to ask God's blessings on our troops, to stand together with them as Americans, and to pray for their swift victory and safe return."