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News
October 21, 2004
Kerry's Vote On the First Gulf War
A lot of people have written to ask why Kerry voted no on the first Gulf War but voted yes the second time. There aren't many statements in which Kerry himself comments on the difference between the two situations (the one quote I've found is at the end of this section); there are however clear differences which make it clear that the two different votes are not inconsistent.
In 1991, Kerry said that he thought that economic sanctions would probably work to drive Saddam out of Kuwait, and that there wasn't enough support among the public to sustain a long, drawn-out conflict if it came to that: he wanted to avoid having another Vietnam, with the troops bogged down and the public divided. In fact, people were badly split on the war (about 50% opposed), and in the end, Congress approved the resolution by a vote of 53-47. Kerry wanted to take more time to build support for war among the American people if it turned out the sanctions did not work.
Though some have said the two votes (1991 and 2002) are inconsistent, the two situations were very different. Mark Kitchens, a Kerry campaign spokesman, commented that in 1991, there had already been a large troop build-up in November, in preparation to attack, and it was clear that the vote was on whether or not to go to war. In 2002, President Bush was assuring Congress and the American people that the vote was about preserving the peace by giving the President authority to use force, and promised that war would be a last resort. "Kerry took him at his word," Kitchens said.
The difference is clear in the resolutions: the 1991 resolution sets a close deadline for Saddam's compliance, after which hostilities may commence: January 15, 1991. In fact, Operation Desert Storm began on January 17th, just five days after the resolution was passed.
The 2002 resolution did not give a deadline after which hostilities could commence. It was clear that authorization of the use of force was part of a strategy to build opposition to Saddam, pressure him into allowing the weapons inspectors back in, etc., and in fact the war did not begin until five months later.
Senator Kerry's statement before the 1991 vote was very clear: he supported the goal of kicking Saddam out of Kuwait, but believed that the country was not yet united behind the idea of war, and that war was not the only option. Here is his complete statement from the Congressional Record forJanuary 12,1991. Note that here he is talking about whether to go to war "in the next few days," whereas in his statement of October 9, 2002, he was clearly talking about a scenario that would take more time: continuing to use diplomacy, building coalitions, etc.
Mr. President, I do not believe our Nation is prepared for war. But I am absolutely convinced our Nation does not believe that war is necessary. Nevertheless, this body may vote momentarily to permit it.
When I returned from Vietnam, I wrote then I was willing personally, in the future, to fight and possibly die for my country. But I said then it must be when the Nation as a whole has decided that there is a real threat and that the Nation as a whole has decided that we all must go.
I do not believe this test has been met. There is no consensus in America for war and, therefore, the Congress should not vote to authorize war.
If we go to war in the next few days, it will not be because our immediate vital interests are so threatened and we have no other choice. It is not because of nuclear, chemical, biological weapons when, after all, Saddam Hussein had all those abilities or was working toward them for years--even while we armed him and refused to hold him accountable for using some of them. It will be because we set an artificial deadline. As we know, those who have been in war, there is no artificial wound, no artificial consequence of war.
Most important, we must balance that against the fact that we have an alternative, an alternative that would allow us to kick Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait, an accomplishment that we all want to achieve.
I still believe that notwithstanding the outcome of this vote, we can have a peaceful resolution. I think it most likely. If we do, for a long time, people will argue in America about whether this vote made it possible.
Many of us will always remain convinced that a similar result could have come about without such a high-risk high-stakes throw away of our constitutional power.
If not, if we do go to war, for years people will ask why Congress gave in. They will ask why there was such a rush to so much death and destruction when it did not have to happen.
It does not have to happen if we do our job.
So I ask my colleagues if we are really once again so willing to have our young and our innocent bear the price of our impatience.
I personally believe, and I have heard countless of my colleagues say, that they think the President made a mistake to unilaterally increase troops, set a date and make war so probable. I ask my colleagues if we are once again so willing to risk people dying from a mistake.
There's one more large difference between the two resolutions,and though I haven't found a direct quote from the Kerry campaign on this, it's worth pointing out: The rationale for the 1991 Gulf War did not involve a threat to the security of the U.S. The U.S. was concerned about the possibility that Saddam would invade Saudi Arabia, but Operation Desert Shield put enough troops in place to prevent that. The resolution Congress was given in 1991 didn't make any mention of U.S. national security, whereas that was one of the key rationales for the authorization in 2002. Here's what the 2002 resolution says:
AUTHORIZATION. The President is authorized to use the Armed Forces of the United States as he determines to be necessary and appropriate in order to
(1) defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq; and
(2) enforce all relevant United Nations Security Council Resolutions regarding Iraq.
You can read the entire 2002 resolution here.
The 1991 resolution makes no reference to defending the security of the United States. It says only:
You can read the entire 1991 resolution here.
The fact is that in 1991, no one thought that there was any danger that Saddam was going to use weapons of mass destruction against the United States. Kerry's desire to give the sanctions more time to work, and to build more support among the American people before going to war (if it came to that), did not in any way mean delaying actions that needed to be taken in the interest of U.S. security. In 2002, when the Bush administration was claiming that Saddam had WMDs which might be used against the U.S., Kerry voted Yes on the authorization.
So: A vote on the immediate use of force, with no claim that the U.S. was directly threatened, versus a vote that was not necessarily supposed to lead to the use of force, with U.S. security at stake. I don't see any problem with the fact that Kerry voted differently in the two situations.
Kerry has commented on the two resolutions directly only once (that I've been able to find) and summed it up as follows, on Fox News Sunday, January 25, 2004 (transcript obtained from LexisNexis):
WALLACE: Governor Dean yesterday said that -- questioning your judgment, said, here's a guy who voted against going to war against Saddam Hussein in 1991 after he'd invaded Kuwait, but on the other hand he voted for going to war against Saddam Hussein in 2002 when it turns out there may not have been a threat.
KERRY: [irrelevant comments on the Dean campaign omitted] Now, I'm happy to answer that. I did indeed vote the way I voted in 1991. I thought we ought to kick Saddam Hussein out of Iraq. I said so on the floor of the Senate. [NOTE: Sen. Kerry surely meant to say "kick Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait"; that was what he said on the floor of the Senate.] But with the memories of Vietnam, I also thought we ought to take a couple of months more to build the support in the country.
With respect to this time, I voted to give the authority to the president to use force under a set of promises by the president as to how he would do it: build a legitimate international coalition, exhaust the remedies of the United Nations, and go to war as a last resort. He broke every single one of those promises.
Israeli Security Think Tank Says Iraq War Distracted U.S.
The war in Iraq did not damage international terror groups, but instead distracted the United States from confronting other hotbeds of Islamic militancy and actually "created momentum" for many terrorists, a top Israeli security think tank said in a report released Monday.
President Bush has called the war in Iraq an integral part of the war on terrorism, saying that deposed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein hoped to develop unconventional weapons and could have given them to Islamic militants across the world. But the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University said that instead of striking a blow against Islamic extremists, the Iraq war "has created momentum for many terrorist elements, but chiefly al-Qaida and its affiliates."
The Washington Times invents Kerry quotes out of whole cloth:
This is news from September 24th, but the "quotes" are still going around in the right-wing blogosphere, so they're worth commenting on. These statements were supposedly made on CNN's Crossfire in 1997, but the transcript of Kerry's 1997 Crossfire appearance has no such statements in it: "We know we can't count on the French. We know we can't count on the Russians. We know that Iraq is a danger to the United States, and we reserve the right to take pre-emptive action whenever we feel it's in our national interest." Kerry didn't say any of that. The Washington Times made it up.
Media Matters put out a press release calling them on this:
Washington Times's McCaslin Smeared Kerry with Misquote of 1997 Statement on Iraq
I would post the entire transcript except that LexisNexis would have a little problem with copyright violation, but anyone who really wants to see can buy the transcript on LexisNexis for $3 with a credit card. But what Media Matters said is true -- he simply didn't say those things. These lines seem to be a badly garbled rendition of what he actually did say on 11/12/97, which is mentioned in the Video section of this site: he expressed disappointment in France and Russia's positions, but went on to talk about how to get them on board. Very different than saying that we "know we can't count on them." It's bad enough that the Right keeps twisting Kerry's statements by taking lines out of context and giving them meanings that Kerry obviously never intended; it's beyond pathetic when they're simply making statements up.
September 30, 2004
A FAILED "TRANSITION": THE MOUNTING COSTS OF THE IRAQ WAR
New study by the Institute for Policy Studies and Foreign Policy in Focus shows the situation deteriorating in Iraq. The entire report is available as a downloadable PDF here. A very useful "just the facts" factsheet to print out is available here.
A Failed 'Transition' is the most comprehensive accounting of the mounting costs of the Iraq war on the United States, Iraq, and the world. Among its major findings are stark figures about the escalation of costs in these most recent three months of "transition" to Iraqi rule, a period that the Bush administration claimed would be characterized by falling human and economic costs.
1. U.S. Military Casualties Have Been Highest During the "Transition": U.S. military casualties (wounded and killed) stand at a monthly average of 747 since the so-called "transition" to Iraqi rule on June 28, 2004. This contrasts with a monthly average of 482 U.S. military casualties during the invasion (March 20-May 1, 2003) and a monthly average of 415 during the occupation (May 2, 2003-June 28, 2004).
2. Non-Iraqi Contractor Deaths Have Also Been Highest During the "Transition": There has also been a huge increase in the average monthly deaths of U.S. and other non-Iraqi contractors since the "transition." On average, 17.5 contractors have died each month since the June 28 "transition," versus 7.6 contractor deaths per month during the previous 14 months of occupation.
3. Estimated Strength of Iraqi Resistance Skyrockets: Because the U.S. military occupation remains in place, the "transition" has failed to win Iraqi support or diminish Iraqi resistance to the occupation. According to Pentagon estimates, the number of Iraqi resistance fighters has quadrupled between November of 2003 and early September 2004, from 5,000 to 20,000. The Deputy Commander of Coalition forces in Iraq, British Major General Andrew Graham, indicated to Time magazine in early September that he thinks the 20,000 estimate is too low; he estimates Iraqi resistance strength at 40,000-50,000. This rise is even starker when juxtaposed to Brookings Institution estimates that an additional 24,000 Iraqi resistance fighters have been detained or killed between May 2003 and August 2004.
4. U.S.- led Coalition Shrinks Further After "Transition": The number of countries identified as members of the Coalition backing the U.S.-led war started with 30 on March 18, 2003, then grew in the early months of the war. Since then, eight countries have withdrawn their troops and Costa Rica has demanded to be taken off the coalition list. At the war's start, coalition countries represented 19.1 percent of the world's population; today, the remaining countries with foces in Iraq represent only 13.6 percent of the world's population.
September 29, 2004
Interesting article about Bush's flip-flops on the reasons for the Iraq war.
NEWS ANALYSIS
Record shows Bush shifting on Iraq war
President's rationale for the invasion continues to evolve
A war that was waged principally to overthrow a dictator who possessed "some of the most lethal weapons ever devised'' has evolved into a mission to rid Iraq of its "weapons-making capabilities'' and to offer democracy and freedom to its 25 million residents.
Growing Pessimism about Iraq
From a Washington Post article, reported on MSNBC here.
A growing number of career professionals within national security agencies believe that the situation in Iraq is much worse, and the path to success much more tenuous, than is being expressed in public by top Bush administration officials, according to former and current government officials and assessments over the past year by intelligence officials at the CIA and the departments of State and Defense.
New ads worth checking out: "Improper use of troops"
These are powerful ads featuring Marines and former Marines.http://www.errolmorris.com/html/election04/election04_mo_buttrill.html
http://www.errolmorris.com/html/election04/election04_mo_buttrill2.html
http://www.errolmorris.com/html/election04/election04_mo_mecklenburg3.html
50 Former U.S. Diplomats, Retired Military Say Bush Should Not Be Trusted (press release)
WASHINGTON, Sept 28 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Today 50 former high- level diplomats, generals and admirals declared President Bush has made America less safe and called for his ouster.
Members of the group are available for interview, including in Miami, where several are giving public presentations this week in the run up to the Presidential Debate on Thursday. Several are fluent in Spanish.
The group released a public statement that says President Bush has squandered American lives and should not be trusted.
"The claim that we are safer is the biggest lie of this campaign season," states the group. "Now we are bogged down there in a quagmire with no solution in sight."
Additional excerpts:
"The plain fact is that George W. Bush and his team have succeeded in making our country and our people less safe, and more vulnerable to new terrorist attacks, by an unnecessary war against a threat that did not exist."
"We have lost the hard-won respect and admiration that America enjoyed ... Some of these losses are irrecoverable and others will take decades to repair, a process we must begin immediately by electing a new administration."
The group also accuses the President of gross negligence, stating, "Prior to 9/11 Mr. Bush and his team ignored repeated warnings about the danger of terrorist attacks."
"The American people must surely not reelect someone presenting himself as a strong and resolute war leader who is responsible for such a sorry record of judgment and performance."
"Leadership in the wrong directions is not the leadership we need or want. We can have no trust in such leadership for the next four years. It is definitely time for a change."
The retired officials who signed the statement include five general and admirals. These include Retired Adm. William J. Crowe Jr., chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under President Reagan and Retired Air Force Gen. Merrill A. (Tony) McPeak. McPeak, former Air Force chief of staff under George H.W. Bush, was Oregon chairman for the 1996 Dole/Kemp campaign and in 2000 was a backer of George W. Bush.
Their full statement is available at: http://www.diplomatsforchange.com/press/kits.shtml
Press release available here.
George Bush's hometown newspaper endorses John Kerry
In an editorial entitled John Kerry Will Restore America's Dignity, the Crawford, Texas newspaper which endorsed George W. Bush in 2000 now lets W. have it in no uncertain terms. The entire editorial is well worth reading; here's what they have to say about Iraq, George Bush's mistakes and John Kerry's record. (It appears the server for The Iconoclast is sometimes getting overloaded; you can also find the full text of the editorial posted in an online community here.)Rather than using the billions of dollars expended on the invasion of Iraq to shore up our boundaries and go after Osama bin Laden and the Saudi Arabian terrorists, the funds were used to initiate a war with what Bush called a more immediate menace, Saddam Hussein, in oil-rich Iraq. After all, Bush said Iraq had weapons of mass destruction trained on America. We believed him, just as we believed it when he reported that Iraq was the heart of terrorism. We trusted him.
The Iconoclast, the President’s hometown newspaper, took Bush on his word and editorialized in favor of the invasion. The newspaper’s publisher promoted Bush and the invasion of Iraq to Londoners in a BBC interview during the time that the administration was wooing the support of Prime Minister Tony Blair.
Again, he let us down.
We presumed the President had solid proof of the existence of these weapons, what and where they were, even as the search continued. Otherwise, our troops would be in much greater danger and the premise for a hurried-up invasion would be moot, allowing more time to solicit assistance from our allies. Instead we were duped into following yet another privileged agenda.
Now he argues unconvincingly that Iraq was providing safe harbor to terrorists, his new key justification for the invasion. It is like arguing that America provided safe harbor to terrorists leading to 9/11.
Once and for all, George Bush was President of the United States on that day. No one else. He had been President nine months, he had been officially warned of just such an attack a full month before it happened. As President, ultimately he and only he was responsible for our failure to avert those attacks.
We should expect that a sitting President would vacation less, if at all, and instead tend to the business of running the country, especially if he is, as he likes to boast, a “wartime president.” America is in service 365 days a year. We don’t need a part-time President who does not show up for duty as Commander-In-Chief until he is forced to, and who is in a constant state of blameless denial when things don’t get done.
What has evolved from the virtual go-it-alone conquest of Iraq is more gruesome than a stain on a White House intern’s dress. America’s reputation and influence in the world has diminished, leaving us with brute force as our most persuasive voice.
Iraq is now a quagmire: no WMDs, no substantive link between Saddam and Osama, and no workable plan for the withdrawal of our troops. We are asked to go along on faith. But remember, blind patriotism can be a dangerous thing and “spin” will not bring back to life a dead soldier; certainly not a thousand of them.
Kerry has remained true to his vote granting the President the authority to use the threat of war to intimidate Saddam Hussein into allowing weapons inspections. He believes President Bush rushed into war before the inspectors finished their jobs.
Kerry also voted against President Bush’s $87 billion for troop funding because the bill promoted poor policy in Iraq, privileged Halliburton and other corporate friends of the Bush administration to profiteer from the war, and forced debt upon future generations of Americans.
Kerry’s four-point plan for Iraq is realistic, wise, strong, and correct. With the help from our European and Middle Eastern allies, his plan is to train Iraqi security forces, involve Iraqis in their rebuilding and constitution-writing processes, forgive Iraq’s multi-billion dollar debts, and convene a regional conference with Iraq’s neighbors in order to secure a pledge of respect for Iraq’s borders and non-interference in Iraq’s internal affairs.
September 27, 2004
An interesting editorial in the Washington Post points out the irony of President Bush's show of concern for "the troops" in his efforts to silence Kerry's criticisms. After President Bush has piled mistake on mistake, needlessly endangering the troops, he says that Kerry's call for a responsible course in Iraq is somehow irresponsible. "The president must, in some nagging way like a mild itch, recognize that it is his mistakes -- not Kerry's language -- that have cost American lives," Richard Cohen writes. Maybe. But Bush seems to think that he can avoid facing reality or taking responsibility for his own choices so long as he can find some way, however convoluted, to blame Kerry.
The invocation of "the troops" to smother criticism is beyond contempt. It dehumanizes them, turning them into a political device to advance the campaign and to secure, if possible, another little slice of the electorate. It does not show, as Bush must think, a special solicitude for them but just the opposite. They are grist for his reelection.
Could it be that Bush's low blows -- and the cheap shots of others -- are uttered in total sincerity? It's possible. Bush has acknowledged almost no mistakes in the way he took the nation to war, pronounced an early victory -- and made a total mess of it. The president is not known for introspection or, for that matter, for much thought, and it could be that he actually thinks that by debating the war, Kerry is trifling with perfection. If that is the case, then he is agog in an Oz of his own.
Another good analogy for understanding the vote to authorize the use of force, this one from The Seattle Times.
Kerry's right to slam the president on Iraq
That John Kerry voted to authorize war in October 2002 but says he would not have gone to war is not a "flip-flop." It is sensible and consistent.
An authorization vote is what a labor union does. There it is called a strike authorization. It says to the negotiators, "We grant you the power to send us on strike. We do this to strengthen your hand." In October 2002, that is what Congress did. It granted George Bush the power to send America to war, so as to strengthen the president's hand against Saddam Hussein. Having approved that power, Kerry has every right to criticize how the president used it. He says Bush rushed to war — and he is right.
A nice way of putting it. A letter to the Chicago Tribune.
Kerry's view
Jim McNelis
September 25, 2004
Skokie -- President Bush is getting confused. He doesn't understand John Kerry's position on Iraq. As a plain talker, he seems to like simple phrases, so I'll give this a shot: Kerry voted to give you the car keys. Then you crashed the car. Pretty simple, huh?
Fantasyland takes another direct hit: Key Bush Assertions About Iraq Contradicted by Pentagon Documents
Many of President Bush's assertions about progress in Iraq -- from police training and reconstruction to preparations for January elections -- are in dispute, according to internal Pentagon documents, lawmakers and key congressional aides on Sunday. Bush used the visit last week by interim Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi to make the case that "steady progress" is being made in Iraq to counter warnings by his Democratic presidential rival, Sen. John Kerry, that the situation in reality is deteriorating.
Bush touted preparations for national elections in January, saying Iraq's electoral commission is up and running and told Americans on Saturday that "United Nations electoral advisers are on the ground in Iraq." He said nearly 100,000 "fully trained and equipped" Iraqi soldiers, police officers and other security personnel are already at work, and that would rise to 125,000 by the end of this year. And he promised more than $9 billion will be spent on reconstruction contracts in Iraq over the next several months.
But many of these assertions have met with skepticism from key congressional aides and experts, and Pentagon documents, given to lawmakers and obtained by Reuters, paint a more complicated picture.
Republican Senators Tell Unpleasant Truths by Joe Conason Three Republican Senators last week spoke out on the escalating chaos in Iraq and the mistakes that have brought us to this point.
If you don’t want to hear a Democrat say that the situation in Iraq is deteriorating dangerously, listen to a Republican Senator instead. "The worst thing we can do is hold ourselves hostage to some grand illusion we’re winning," said Chuck Hagel, a Republican from Nebraska. "Right now, we are not winning. Things are getting worse …. The fact is, we’re in deep trouble in Iraq."
www.kerryoniraqwar.com
Not associated with, funded by or endorsed by Kerry-Edwards 2004