Replies

Not always:

U.S. Senate

Committee on Armed Services,

Washington, DC, October 9, 1998.

The President,
The White House, Washington, DC.

Dear Mr. President: We are writing to express our concern
over recent developments in Iraq.

Last February, the Senate was working on a resolution
supporting military action if diplomacy did not succeed in
convincing Saddam Hussein to comply with the United Nations
Security Council resolutions concerning the disclosure and
destruction of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. This
effort was discontinued when the Iraqi government reaffirmed
its acceptance of all relevant Security Council resolutions
and reiterated its willingness to cooperate with the United
Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) and the International
Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in a Memorandum of Understanding
signed by its Deputy Prime Minister and the United Nations
Secretary General.

Despite a brief interval of cooperation, however, Saddam
Hussein has failed to live up to his commitments. On August
5, Iraq suspended all cooperation with UNSCOM and the IAEA,
except some limited monitoring activity.

As UNSCOM Executive Chairman Richard Butler told us in a
briefing for all Senators in March, the fundamental historic
reality is that Iraq has consistently sought to limit,
mitigate, reduce and, in some cases, defeat the Security
Council's resolutions by a variety of devices.

We were gratified by the Security Council's action in
unanimously passing Resolution 1194 on September 9. By
condemning Iraq's decision to suspend cooperation with UNSCOM
and the IAEA, by demanding that Iraq rescind that decision
and cooperate fully with UNSCOM and the IAEA, by deciding not
to conduct the sanctions' review scheduled for October 1998
and not to conduct any future such reviews until UNSCOM and
the IAEA, report that they are satisfied that they have been
able to exercise the full range of activities provided for in
their mandates, and by acting under Chapter VII of the United
Nations Charter, the Security Council has sent an unambiguous
message to Saddam Hussein.

We are skeptical, however, that Saddam Hussein will take
heed of this message even though it is from a unanimous
Security Council. Moreover, we are deeply concerned that
without the intrusive inspections and monitoring by UNSCOM
and the IAEA, Iraq will be able, over time, to reconstitute
its weapons of mass destruction programs.

In light of these developments, we urge you, after
consulting with Congress, and consistent with the U.S.
Constitution and laws, to take necessary actions (including,
if appropriate, air and missile strikes on suspect Iraq
sites) to respond effectively to the threat posed by Iraq's
refusal to end its weapons of mass destruction programs.

Sincrely,

Carl Levin, Joe Lieberman, Frank R. Lautenberg, Dick
Lugar, Kit Bond, Jon Kyl, Chris Dodd, John McCain, Kay
Bailey Hutchison, Alfonse D'Amato, Bob Kerrey, Pete V.
Domenici, Dianne Feinstein, Barbara A. Mikulski.
Thomas Daschle, John Breaux, Tim Johnson, Daniel K.
Inouye, Arlen Specter, James Inhofe, Strom Thurmond,
Mary L. Landrieu, Wendell Ford, John F. Kerry, Chuck
Grassley, Jesse Helms, Rick Santorum.