Posted on 09/22/2002 8:52:44 PM PDT by syriacus
Sen. Robert C. Byrd, D-W.Va., said President Bush’s plans to invade Iraq are a conscious effort to distract public attention from growing problems at home.
“This administration, all of a sudden, wants to go to war with Iraq,” Byrd said. “The [political] polls are dropping, the domestic situation has problems.... So all of a sudden we have this war talk, war fervor, the bugles of war, drums of war, clouds of war.
“Don’t tell me that things suddenly went wrong. Back in August, the president had no plans.... Then all of a sudden this country is going to war,” Byrd told the Senate on Friday.
“Are politicians talking about the domestic situation, the stock market, weaknesses in the economy, jobs that are being lost, housing problems? No.”
Byrd warned of another Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. Passed on Aug. 7, 1964, that resolution handed President Lyndon Johnson broad powers to escalate the war in Vietnam, a conflict that cost 58,202 American lives and millions of Asian lives.
“Congress will be putting itself on the sidelines,” Byrd told the Senate. “Nothing would please this president more than having such a blank check handed to him.”
Byrd said his belief in the Constitution will prevent him from voting for Bush’s war resolution. “But I am finding that the Constitution is irrelevant to people of this administration.”
Sens. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., and Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., both praised Byrd after he spoke.
“It is the height of patriotism to ask such hard questions,” Clinton said. “No one exemplifies that more than the senior senator from West Virginia.”
Byrd said, “Before the nation is committed to war, before we send our sons and daughters to battle in faraway lands, there are critical questions that must be asked. To date, the answers from the administration have been less than satisfying.”
Byrd repeatedly said Bush has failed to give members of Congress any evidence about any immediate danger from Iraq. Byrd also criticized his speech to the United Nations.
“Instead of offering compelling evidence that the Iraqi regime had taken steps to advance its weapons program, the president offered the U.N. more of a warning than an appeal for support.
“Instead of using the forum of the U.N. General Assembly to offer evidence and proof of his claims, the president basically told the nations of the world that you are either with me, or against me,” Byrd said.
“We must not be hell-bent on an invasion until we have exhausted every other possible option to assess and eliminate Iraq’s supposed weapons of mass destruction program. We must not act alone. We must have the support of the world.”
Byrd said Congress needs solid evidence and answers to several specific questions, including: * Does Saddam Hussein pose an imminent threat to the U.S.? * Should the United States act alone? * What would be the repercussions in the Middle East and around the globe? * How many civilians would die in Iraq? * How many American forces would be involved? * How do we afford this war? * Will the U.S. respond with nuclear weapons if Saddam Hussein uses chemical or biological weapons against U.S. soldiers? * Does the U.S. have enough military and intelligence resources to fight wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, while mobilizing resources to prevent attacks on our own shores?
Byrd said the proposed resolution Bush sent Congress on Thursday would be the “broadest possible grant of war powers to any president in the history of our Republic. The resolution is a direct insult and an affront to the powers given to Congress.”
Byrd also criticized Bush’s request for power to carry out “pre-emptive attacks” and send troops to Iraq, Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, the West Bank and anywhere else in the Middle East.
“I cannot believe the gall and the arrogance of the White House in requesting such a broad grant of war powers,” Byrd said. “This is the worst kind of election-year politics.”
Maybe I'm asking for too much but by now I would think that somebody in the Administration would have gone on the record somewhere on the web with some direct answers or statements.
Make sure to omit quotation marks when you search. On some search engines that limits you to the exact phrase enclosed in quotes.
Also, I did a search on "bush speech", with "match all words" and "order by post time" selected and got the transcript of his UN speech (about a third of the way down the page).
A text of President Bush's speech to the United Nations
AFAIK, the search engine here only looks at article titles, not the text of the article. So, if Cheney made some comment on Iraq and it's buried inside a WashPost article, it might be hard to dig it up.
I pinged Jim Robinson to let him know that there seems to be some use for an article body search capability. Maybe he will have some other information that can help you out.
Ames, Iowa, as it turned out. Where a federally funded animal disease laboratory has stocks of decidedly NON-weaponized anthrax strains for research.
But that fact is just too inconvenient, now, isn't it?
That's a good excuse now, but he's been acting like this pretty much his entire career in the Senate.
You would have gotten an answer to your question much more quickly if you asked your question in your own vanity thread.
"But that fact is just too inconvenient, now, isn't it?"
You haven't been following the anthrax story at all, have you? There is room for argument, to be sure. But your assertion about "inconvenient facts" is woefully uninformed.
To start with, the so-called Ames strain came from South Texas.
May I suggest you take some time to inform yourself on this particular subject. It should prove helpful down the road...
I think it took a while for the remarks to be added to the record. They are there now. I found them by doing a search on the exact phrase Gulf of Tonkin and looking for September 20, 2002 in the results I got.
Byrd's words according to the Congressional Record at thomas.loc.gov.
Mr. BYRD. Madam President, I thank the Senator from Florida for his perspicacious remarks. He has not been asleep. He has been ill with a temporary ailment, but he is back on the mend. He is ready to go.I also thank my friend for his expression of support for my amendment. That amendment will be voted on next Tuesday. It will be voted up or down. Senators will have an opportunity to go on record, if they support that amendment, an opportunity to support the creation of a Department of Homeland Defense. In voting for my amendment, they will have an opportunity to say that we are not going to hand this whole package of homeland security as it is envisioned in the House or Senate bill. I refer to the Senate bill as the Lieberman bill.
Once the Senate passes on the homeland security bill, then the Senate bill would go to the conference. The conference report eventually would come back to both Houses, and the Senate will not have an opportunity on the conference report to amend. All the Senate will be able to do is vote up or down on the conference report.
Under the House bill or under the Lieberman bill, the overall time certainly under the Lieberman bill, the overall period for the ``fleshing out'' of this Department of Homeland
Security, this fleshing out by moving various and sundry agencies and offices into the several directorates that are established by the Lieberman bill, and the five directorates that are mentioned in my amendment thereto, that fleshing out would occur under the Lieberman bill over a period of 13 months.
But in passing the Lieberman bill, and it is light-years ahead of the House bill, it is a better bill than the House bill, but it can be improved. That is what I am attempting to do with my amendment. Under the Lieberman bill, over a period of 13 months, Congress will be putting itself on the sidelines.
The Senate will be saying: OK, Mr. President, it is all yours. You have 13 months. Congress is going fishing. You have it. It is all yours.
Now, nothing would please this President more than to have such a blank check handed to him. The Lieberman bill, in that respect, is a Tonkin Gulf resolution on homeland security. Congress will be removing itself to the sidelines for those 13 months, and the President and this administration--think about that carefully--with its penchant for secrecy, its penchant for operating out of the White House, having no limitations, will have full authority to move agencies and 170,000 employees into this new department, with Congress relegating itself to the sidelines.
The hand of Congress ought to be there. Congress ought to conduct its constitutional responsibility of oversight in seeing that these agencies are put into the various directorates in an orderly way throughout the 13 months. The Lieberman committee and its counterpart in the House under my amendment would be front and center throughout the 13 months. That committee would still be in the driver's seat, and every 4 months there would be another shift of agencies and directorates, every 4 months, until it is completed, over a 13-month period.
All the while, Mr. Lieberman's committee would take the policies and the recommendations of the Secretary of Homeland Security, look at them, debate them in the committee, amend them, and report the legislation to the Senate, and then the Senate would take the legislation, report it from the Lieberman committee, and debate it, amend it, send it to the President.
I have said we could have expedited procedure. I am not a Senator who likes expedited procedure, but in this situation I would be willing to have expedited procedures to see that the bill doesn't fall through the cracks in the committee, and that it is not filibustered or delayed in the Senate.
That is my prescription, my amendment for order: a phased filling out of the department by agencies and offices, under continuing congressional oversight, avoiding the chaos that will otherwise occur just by handing this whole thing over to the President and the administration--hook, line, and sinker.
Just mark my words. I am seeking to improve the Lieberman bill. I am not adversarial to the Lieberman bill. But if we don't adopt my amendment, or something like it, there is going to be chaos, and instead of having a measure that will promote the security of our homeland and its people, we will be taking our eyes off the terrorists, off homeland security.
The federal agencies are out there, working now to provide homeland security. The passage of the Lieberman bill is not necessary in order to get these people out there guarding the ports of entry--the rivers and seaports and airports and the southern and northern borders. They are already out there working now, every day. The FBI, just a few days ago, in the State of New York, located a cell and arrested six persons. Did the FBI have to wait on this homeland security bill? There is no great outcry out there in the country; there is no great clamor for a homeland security bill. When I go to West Virginia, people don't come up to me and say: Senator, let's get that homeland security bill passed. When are you going to pass that bill? There is no great clamor out there. As a matter of fact, it is hard to get anyone to listen to a discussion of the subject.
I have been on this Senate floor time and time again, asking to be heard. Listen. Hear me. Why, the Members of the Senate aren't that greatly interested in this bill. Facing us in less than 2 months is a big election. All of a sudden this administration, which as late as the middle of August has been saying that there were ``no plans on the President's desk'' to go to war with Iraq. I asked the Secretary of State that question in a committee hearing: oh, there is ``no plan. The President doesn't have any plan on his desk.'' I asked the Secretary of Defense. Oh, the President has no plans. The President himself has been quoted time and time again saying he has no plans; ``there is no plan on my desk.''
All of a sudden, bam, the administration wants to go to war with Iraq. It wasn't too long ago, I can remember the Secretary's public spokesman and Ari Fleischer and some others in the administration, saying: ``Why have a Department of Homeland Defense? We don't need one.'' That wasn't long ago. But all of a sudden, all of a sudden the President was dropping in the polls and the domestic situation was such that the administration was appearing to be much like the Emperor who had no clothes. All of a sudden, bam, all of this war talk--the war fervor, the drums of war, the bugles of war, the clouds of war--this war hysteria has blown in like a hurricane. And what has that done to the President's polls? Seventy percent.
Don't tell me that things suddenly went wrong. I sat in on some of the secret briefings and nobody from the administration in those secret briefings has been able to answer the question: Why now? Why all of a sudden, when the administration was saying back just in August the President has no plans? Let's not have all of this angst about war.
All of a sudden this country is going to war. And the President is saying, I'll do this if the U.N. doesn't do it.
Now, all of a sudden, is the Administration talking about the domestic situation in this country? Are they talking about the stock market? Are they talking about the weakness of the economy? Are they talking about the jobs that are being lost? Are they talking about the decrease in housing starts in this country? No. No.
The war clouds are there. All of a sudden this administration sends up a resolution to Congress that is a nonstarter, to give this President the authority that he is asking for. Not by this Constitution will I give my vote on that resolution. That resolution is going to take some work. But all of a sudden? Why is it? Is it politics?
The Constitution is apparently irrelevant to people in this administration. What is wanted here by the administration is for Congress, in connection with war, to do the same as they want Congress to do in homeland security--hand over the whole authority and say: Take it, Mr. President. It's all yours for the next 13 months. Congress is going fishing. We are not going to be in the mix.
What's really odd---earlier in the same day, Byrd addressed the Senate and kept quoting all the newssources that were saying Bush was in Iraq because of oil.
Byrd has both barrels blazing as he tries to knock Bush off his pedestal of high opinion among Americans.
I see McCain followed Byrd with criticism of Bush's anti-terrorism efforts for allowing Russia too much leeway in Georgia.
Both of them taking their cues from the NYTimes.
I expected the original thread about Byrd's statement to discuss the subject of his claims. Instead it turned into a slam-fest of Byrd with no discussion. It could have been a very good rebuttal but just became a waste of time.
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