Senior lawmakers attack Bush administration's "messianic zeal" on Iraq

Agence France-Presse | 3/14/03

[kattracks]

With the prospect of war with Iraq just days away, senior Democratic lawmakers attacked the Bush administration for its "messianic zeal" to disarm Iraq by military force.

Senators Patrick Leahy and Edward Kennedy took to the Senate floor to call on President George W. Bush to "get it right" on ridding Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction.

"I am concerned that as we rush to war with Iraq, we are becoming more divided at home and more isolated in the world community," Kennedy warned.

"Instead of persuading the dissenters at home and abroad, the administration by its harsh rhetoric is driving the wedge deeper. Never before, even in the Vietnam war, has America taken such bold military action with so little international support."

Shocked by the level of bitterness between the United States and its traditional allies across the Atlantic, Leahy warned that going to war with Iraq without the UN Security Council's support would damage alliances and could violate international law.

"I cannot pretend to understand the thinking of those in the administration who for months or even longer have seemed possessed with a kind of messianic zeal in favor of war," he said.

Although Leahy defended the use of force as a last resort, he questioned President George W. Bush's advisors whom he said seemed to want to short circuit the inspections process and appeared to care little about alienating Washington's allies in the process.

"We risk seriously weakening the Security Council's future effectiveness and our own ability to rally international support, not only to prevent this war and future wars, but to deal with other global threats like terrorism," he said.

"And this concern is exacerbated by the increasing resentment of the Administration's domineering and simplistic "you are either with us or against us" approach, which has already damaged long-standing relationships, both with our neighbors in this hemisphere and our friends across the Atlantic."

Leahy also criticized the adminsitration for failing to provide information on how much a war with Iraq would cost, and insisted it had failed to provide evidence that Iraq had anything to do with the September 11, 2001 attacks or any details of Baghdad's links to al Queda.

"The Bush administration was wrong to allow the anti-Iraq zealots in its ranks to exploit the 9/11 tragedy by using it to make war against Iraq a higher priority than the war against terrorism," added Kennedy.

Bush, meanwhile, was engaged in a fourth straight day of reaching out to world leaders in hopes of securing the elusive nine votes needed to win UN Security Council passage of a resolution paving the way for war against Iraq.

France, one of the five permanent council members with veto power -- along with the US, Britain, Russia and China -- has said categorically it would veto any resolution calling for war.

[magua]

french disinfo

[MEG33]

Perhaps France will decorate Leahy and Kennedy!

[mass55th]

"I am concerned that as we rush to war with Iraq, we are becoming more divided at home and more isolated in the world community," Kennedy warned.

And you and your ilk are loving every minute of it aren't you Ted?

[Bahbah]

"we are becoming more divided at home."

Swimmer Ted is not reading the polls. 70% plus of Americans are ready to have our troops go get 'em.

[Asclepius]

"I cannot pretend to understand the thinking of those in the administration who for months or even longer have seemed possessed with a kind of messianic zeal in favor of war," he said.

Well, duh. He can't pretend to any degree of understanding on any issue. But that's about him, not the administration.

[SandRat]

"I cannot pretend to understand the thinking of those in the administration who for months or even longer have seemed possessed with a kind of messianic zeal in favor of war,"

Don't any of these turdballs remember that America from the very start believed in a "Manifest Destiny", to expand the country westward, the country waking up to the problem of the Tripolitan Pirates and solving it with the periods equivilnt of BB and Marines, forcing open the gates to Japan, the Monroe Doctrine, Teddy Roosevelt and how we got the Panama Canal, how the current Teddy's brother got us in to Vietnam?

Jeeze!!! Wake up we've always been that way! Always will.

[lavaroise]

Ahem, it's Chirac who has been talking about messianic peace age of inspectors for Saddam all this time.

[The Wizard]

Misleading headline alert: Senior DEMOCRAT

[Jimmy Valentine's brother]

Both these Clymers voted against the first Gulf War Resolution. Nothing new here, keep moving. Or as Todd Beamer would say, "READY, LET'S ROLL!"

[UncleSamUSA]

Its probably been said already, but this is more bullcrap from the buttwipe French.

[Dante3]

What did Kennedy say when we attacked the Serbs -- a people who had never done anything to us and never posed a threat to us?

[Enduring Freedom]

Political whores like Kennedy thrive on the adulation of the morally confused and the despotic.

The enemies of America are, in order:

Democrats;

Old Europe;

Radical Muslims;

Communists.

[smith288]

I think Bush's main goal was to scare the begeezus out of the Ba'ath party just by the show of military might ready to go and destroy every part of Iraq with one phone call... Saddam was supposed to succumb by the international pressure as well as the psy-ops.... and Iraqis would step in and start to govern themselves after the peaceful resolution to this.....

It would have pleased the nutty left as a fire was not shot and Saddam would have been disarmed ALL THANKS TO BUSH administration buuuuuuuuuuuuutttt...

France gave Saddam strenght. I was sure Saddam would have either been killed by internal force or left dodge into exile. But France, in their zeal to maintain business as usual with Iraq, ruined the only chance to end this peacefully.

I blame France, Germany and Belguim for making this war more inevitable than it was before the 2nd resolution was presented.

[Arpege92]

Kennedy says he is concerned of a rush to war with Iraq? Twelve years is a rush? I don't think it is but mabey Kennedy was too drunk during that time anyway!

[mass55th]

"Swimmer Ted is not reading the polls."

What do you expect from a plagerist? If he's too lazy to write his own papers, he's too lazy to read.

[raisincane]

"as we rush to war with Iraq" If we continue this mad rush to war, our armed forces will start traveling backwards.

[AmericanVictory]

It's nice to see them all climbing on the bandwagon.
It will be even nicer to see as the wheels fall off.

[Just mythoughts]

The pile of chaff is sure stacking up higher and higher, now we know why President Bush said "Those who are for us, and those who are "AGAINST" us.

That "AXIS OF EVIL" seems to have a worldwide foundation that keeps it propped up.

Taking comfort in having the faces of the enemies of freedom developed.

[Tom Bombadil]

"messianic zeal"

Codewords describing methods of VWRC and the evil religious right.

Probably plays well to the Democrat choir and the syncophant press but sounds a little weak and worn to me.