Interview: John Kerry with William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Interview
truthout.org
Monday 22 December 2003
This interview is formatted somewhat differently than the one I did with Governor Howard Dean this past May. Senator Kerry and I spoke for
about 20 minutes in a minivan that was flying down some back road in New Hampshire on the way to a gathering at Hopkington High
School. Kerry was slated to speak about environmental issues to a science class that was constructing an electric hybrid car as part of the
curriculum. Because our one-on-one time was constricted due to his campaign schedule, I have decided to add a portion of his comments
from that classroom.
WRP: Senator Bill Nelson revealed last week that he and some 75 other Senators had been given an intelligence briefing by a Bush
administration official just before the Iraq war vote, during the time frame of those quotes I just read. In that briefing, they were told that Iraq
had not only chemical and biological weapons, but had the technical capability to strike American cities on the East Coast with unmanned
drones filled with these poisons. Nelson refused to divulge who gave the briefing. I want to take you back to this time, to September and
early October of 2002. What were you thinking about during this period, in the days and weeks before the Iraq resolution? I know you can’t
reveal classified briefings, but were you getting at the time data that persuaded you that a yes vote was the proper course?
JK: Absolutely. More than that. I attended one particular briefing at the Pentagon. The Secretary of Defense was there, as well as the
Admiral in charge of all intelligence. They passed photographs around showing us very specific locations and places where, they said, their
intelligence confirmed that weapons of mass destruction were being held. This was in addition to those unmanned drones, which we were
told about, and in addition to the 45-minute deployment capacity, which we were told about.
WRP: I wrote a book last September called ‘War on Iraq: What Team Bush Doesn’t Want You To Know,’ which stated that Iraq’s WMD
capabilities had been grossly exaggerated by the administration, and therefore their rationale for war had no standing. That book, over the
last fifteen months, has been proven to have been absolutely correct on this point. A lot of people read that book, and have subsequently
turned away from your campaign for one reason: These people believe this data was out there before the Iraq vote, that it was available to
you, and they believe you chose to ignore it or disregard it and vote in favor of the war. How would you answer that charge?
JK: There were a number of people offering contrary opinions, but this was compared to the overwhelming evidence that was put in front of
us in very specific and factual terms. When someone shows you a photograph and says, “Our intelligence tells us that in this building is the
following, and we have the following sources to back up these determinations,” it is pretty compelling.
What’s more, what I thought was equally compelling was not just the evidence, but were the very direct promises of Colin Powell and
others within the administration about how they were going to proceed, about working with the United Nations, about using weapons
inspectors, and about war being a last resort. In foreign policy, traditionally, we have worked across party lines to try to have one voice to
speak with as a country in the interest of our national security. Obviously, the President, we now know, broke every single one of those
promises and disregarded his own word. He is not a man of his word.
Given the information we were given at that time, however, a lot of very smart people made the same decision. Bill Clinton thought we
ought to do what we did. He was the former President of the United States, and made his judgment based on eight years of experience.
Hillary Clinton voted for it. Tom Harkin voted for it, as did Joe Biden. A lot of people made the judgment that this is a serious threat, and
made the judgment that the administration was committed to going through the international process, build a coalition and do this right.
They didn’t do it right. They did it wrong. I was one of the first Senators to stand up and hold them accountable for it. In fact, I forewarned
them each step of the way about what they needed to do to legitimately live up to their obligations
WRP: How do you feel now, after all this time has passed, when you hear these stories about unmanned drones striking the East coast,
and other threat stories like that?
JK: It is one of the worst intelligence lapses, or deceptions, in modern history.
WRP: True or False: A solution to the Iraq problem, particularly the need to bring international cooperation into the conflict, and into the
repair of that country, will never be found as long as Bush is in the White House.
JK: True. The solutions are very specific and very achievable, but depends on the United States not acting arrogantly, not acting unilaterally,
and being willing to share power, authority and responsibility. If you are willing to transfer that to the United Nations, or to a coalition working
under an umbrella – it doesn’t have to be directly U.N., but has to be approved by the U.N. – so that you are giving real shared authority over
reconstruction and governmental transformation, and it’s not a Paul Bremer/U.S. decision-making process but a legitimate international
accord as to how you empower the Iraqi people to decide their own future, then you absolutely have the ability to get additional help on the
ground.
I’ve talked to the ambassadors and the other people involved. I know Kofi Annan and the U.N. are prepared to be involved. But you have to
invite them and share with them appropriately, and this administration has refused to do that.
WRP: Do you feel a kinship with the peace movement that exploded around this Iraq invasion, given your background? Or do you feel
alienated from them because of that vote?
JK: I felt enormous understanding, empathy, sympathy and respect for the voice they were articulating. I completely understood it. I came
from there. I understood the confusion over why someone with my long history, why there was confusion over my position, why people were
questioning it.
But I felt my decision was absolutely consistent with the counter-proliferation efforts I have been making as a Senator for my entire career. I
felt proliferation was a critical issue. I thought a President ought to get inspectors back into Iraq. I thought a President ought to hold Saddam
Hussein accountable. But I knew how to do it right, and my regret is that this President proved he not only didn’t know how to do it right, but
was prepared to go back on his promises, be deceptive, and mislead the nation. I regret that he did that, and I regret that I put any trust in
him at all. I shouldn’t have, obviously.
Put it this way: Given the circumstances we were in at the time, the decision was appropriate, but in retrospect I will never trust the man
again. That’s why I am running against him. He deserves to be replaced with someone who is trustworthy.
WRP: In terms of the 2004 campaign, the central argument put up by a lot of people in the Democratic base who are against you is that you
don’t “get it.” They see other candidates as fighting for their progressive values, and they see you saying “Get over it” after the election
debacle in Florida, as quoted by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. In contrast, your voting record in the Senate is clearly as progressive as the
day is long. Where do you stand with the progressive community? Do you “get it”? Can you be their leader?
JK: I believe that I am the most consistent, most accomplished progressive fighter in this entire field. My record over 35 years of standing
up and fighting for progressive causes is clear on with respect to women, with respect to the environment, with respect to children,
education, health care, our role in the world, human rights, civil rights. My record is stronger, longer and deeper than any other candidate in
this field with respect to the progressive agenda of this party.
When I say “Move on” from 2000, I’m as angry as anyone else. Votes ought to be counted. But my objective is to win. My objective is “Don’t
get mad, get even.” They way you get even is to go out and take that agenda to the country and build a coalition around it. I think if you
compare my record to the people in this field, I think it’s clear that I am the progressive candidate. I am the one who has stood up and taken
the risks and fought for the agenda of my party with consistency.
I think the progressives in our party need to look and see who has the ability to take that progressive agenda and still stand up and beat
George Bush. We don’t need to send the country a message. We need to send the country a President.
Upon arrival at the school, Senator Kerry inspected the hybrid car the students were constructing, and then sat down with them in their
classroom. A portion of the comments he made are below:
JK: After you get out of school here, after you finish college, most of you are going to be looking around asking, “How am I going to find a
job that is going to excite me and do some good?” I believe that one of the great possibilities for your generation is to make America safer –
safer in terms of our dependency on oil from the Middle East, from Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, etcetera, but also safer in terms of our health and
our long-term future on this planet.
Give me a show of hands: How many of you have studied global warming? Almost all of you. How many of you believe, after studying it, that
global warming is a serious issue? All of you. How many of you think we’re doing anything about it? None of you. There you go. And you’re
right, we’re not doing anything about it. We’re going backwards.
One of the biggest contributors to global warming is carbon dioxide, in addition to sulfur dioxide, mercury and so forth. All the ice core
studies and all of the analysis – there are 1,500 scientists at the United Nations, all of whom have agreed that this is a serious issue. 160
nations worked for ten years to come up with a solution, and the United States under George Bush was the first country in the world to say,
“To hell with all of you, we’re walking away from the solution, we’re declaring it dead.” In the last weeks, some of President Bush’s friends
were working hard in Washington to get $50 billion of subsidies for oil and gas drilling instead of helping you get better batteries for that car
out there, so you can do more research into electric cars, so we can begin to do some of the things we need to do to clean up our air, water,
you name it.
This is your future. This is real stuff. It really wasn’t so long ago that I was sitting where you are sitting, and I was probably daydreaming
half the day away, trying to figure out what to do with my life like a lot of you are. And then, after college, along came a war, and I wound up
fighting in it, and a lot of young students got active in politics. The first speech I ever gave in politics, I was exactly the age some of you are
here today. This is when it begins. So you all can help us make a difference.
God only gave the United States of America three percent of the world’s oil reserves. That’s all we have. We import almost 60% of our oil.
Saudi Arabia has 46% of the world’s oil reserve, and we have three. All of the Middle East has 65% of the world’s oil reserves. So we are
very dependent on an unstable area, and on relationships we don’t particularly like, and I don’t care how smart you are, there is no way you
can figure out a way for the United States of America to drill it’s way out of this predicament. We have to invent our way out of it. I think it’s
time we got about the business of really trying to do that.
So I’m going to create a $20 billion energy conservation trust fund. I’m going to create a hydrogen institute, where one of you may wind up
working after you graduate. Which one of you said you wanted to be an electrical engineer? There you are. You could go to work at that
hydrogen institute, and help us discover – it may not be hydrogen, but there is something out there that is going to be the clean energy
source for the future and for your generation. We’ve got to start finding it.
That’s why I’m here. That’s why I’m running for President. That’s why I want to talk to all of you today. Can we open this up? Can I get some
questions?
STUDENT: Global warming is pretty much, like, the most important issue for me. We’ve denied it’s a problem for so long that it’s now this
huge problem. You said this is one of the reasons you want to be President. What is your record as far as environmental stuff?
JK: I’m happy to share that with you. I have the strongest environmental record of anyone who is running for President. I began my
involvement with the environment, it was pretty much against my will, when my mom got me up at four in the morning and dragged me out
for a so-called nature walk. She told me to stop and listen, and I did, and I heard things I hadn’t heard and saw things that I hadn’t seen.
She began to explain all of that to me, and I’ve never forgotten it, because that connection is what started it.
When I came back from Vietnam, I became involved in Earth Day. This was 1970, and then I was chairman of Earth Day in New England in
1990. We actually painted Storrow Drive biodegradable green, and we had hundreds of booths up and down the Charles River showing
people what the technologies of the future could do.
I’ve been chairman of the Oceans Committee in the Senate. I’ve written our fisheries laws, I’ve written our plastics pollution laws, our
marine mammal protection laws, our flood insurance laws, our coastal zone management laws. I was in Rio for the Earth Summit in 1990. I
was at Buenos Aires, Kyoto, The Hague for the global warming conferences. I’ve helped negotiate with the less developed countries on
those issues. I led the fight to stop Newt Gingrich from literally killing the Clean Air Act. I led the fight as a Lieutenant Governor to make acid
rain a national issue, and it’s now in the Clean Air Act. I led the fight to stop the drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. I come to this
race with a long and passionate record of caring about the environment.
Sometimes in America, the environment becomes a really bad discussion. People like George Bush and his friends will say, “You have a
choice. You can have a job, or you can have a clean environment.” Have you ever heard that argument? Jobs or environment, right? It’s a
false choice. Cleaning up the environment can be jobs. In Massachusetts, the fastest-growing part of our economy is environmental
companies that do clean-up of toxic waste and chemicals, and to consult with companies so they don’t spit out dirty water and the like.
I’m convinced that a good President can help bring the country together in a way that doesn’t lose us jobs, and in a way that helps create a
better future, and that’s why I’m running. That’s why I’m here. |
