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Posted on 10/08/2002 1:02:41 PM PDT by Asmodeus
WASHINGTON –– Saddam Hussein's apparent policy of not resorting to terrorist attacks against the United States could change if he concludes a U.S.-led attack against him was inevitable, CIA Director George Tenet said as President's Bush bid for congressional support to use force hit a snag in the Senate.
Tenet, in a letter read before a joint hearing of the House and Senate intelligence committees Tuesday, said that "Baghdad for now appears to be drawing a line short of conducting terrorist attacks with conventional or chemical or biological weapons."
But Tenet went on to say that should Saddam conclude that a U.S.-led attack against his country could not be deterred, "he probably would become much less constrained in adopting terrorist action."
Both the House and the Senate were debating the Iraq war resolution.
But while it appeared to be clear sailing for the measure in the GOP-led House, Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., served notice on other Democrats at a party luncheon that he intended to use parliamentary tactics to delay a final vote, according to those who attended the session.
That could delay the vote well into next week, suggested Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-W.Va.
Byrd, widely respected for his deep knowledge of the Senate rules, has emerged as the primary Senate opponent to the president's war resolution.
The House began a fateful three-day debate on the measure on Tuesday. The Senate, which has been debating the measure since last Thursday, resumed its debate.
If forced into war, "We will prevail," President Bush told a Tennessee audience.
"At this moment, the people's house begins debate on one of the most difficult questions we will ever face," said Rep. David Dreier, R-Calif.
The House hoped to conclude by Thursday night. The measure before both chambers provides the president wide latitude to take military action to disarm Saddam of chemical, biological or nuclear weapons and, if possible, depose the Iraqi leader.
Anticipating an overwhelming vote of support in Congress, Bush told a Knoxville, Tenn., rally on Tuesday, "Military option is my last choice, the last choice. But should we commit our military, we'll be ready. We'll be prepared. We'll have a great plan and make no mistake about it, we will prevail."
Secretary of State Colin Powell, meeting with lawmakers on Capitol Hill, said the congressional resolution "will definitely strengthen my hand as I try to do the diplomatic work up in New York to get a United Nations Security Council resolution" requiring unimpeded weapons inspections in Iraq.
Powell said there was increasing support at the U.N. for a new inspections mandate. "All of my colleagues at the United Nations and others I've spoken to around the world clearly see the threat," he said.
At the Pentagon, a Defense Intelligence Agency official told reporters that Saddam is actively making biological and chemical weapons – and trying to hide that fact from the world.
Iraq is "taking steps to conceal sensitive equipment and documentation in anticipation of new inspections," John Yurechko said.
In a somber address to the nation Monday evening, Bush said the threat from Iraq was unique and imminent and there was no time to wait for final proof that Saddam had developed a nuclear capability – "the smoking gun – that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud."
"While there are many dangers in the world, the threat from Iraq stands alone because it gathers the most serious dangers of our age in one place," the president said.
Bush told a Cincinnati audience in his televised speech that Saddam was "a homicidal dictator who is addicted to weapons of mass destruction," and that if he succeeds in obtaining nuclear weapons to add to his biological and chemical stockpiles, he "would be in a position to blackmail anyone who opposes his aggression."
In Baghdad, the government of Iraq on Tuesday described Bush's speech as an attempt to justify an attack.
"The speech contained misleading information through which Bush is trying to justify an illogical and illegitimate attack on Iraq," said Foreign Minister Naji Sabri Sabri.
On Tuesday, a Pentagon official reiterated U.S. warnings that Iraqi military officers should refuse orders to use chemical or biological weapons. Any Iraqis involved in such attacks would be treated as war criminals after the conflict ended, said Douglas Feith, undersecretary for policy at the Defense Department.
The House has allotted 21 hours to debate what House International Relations Committee Chairman Henry Hyde, R-Ill., a chief sponsor of the White House-backed resolution, called "one of the most consequential questions we will deal with for years to come."
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Dolts. Daschle from West Virginia?
Thanks, lets keep you folks tied up in DC while the campaigns start the ads showing the RATS side by side with Saddam.
no changes have been made since clinton left...its his agency and i don't understand why changes haven't been made...
Bobby (The Klansman) Byrd has a long history of delaying Senate votes.
The Civil Rights Act provided protection of voting rights; banned discrimination in public facilities—including private businesses offering public services—such as lunch counters, hotels, and theaters; and established equal employment opportunity as the law of the land.
As Senator Byrd took his seat, House members, former senators, and others—150 of them—vied for limited standing space at the back of the chamber. With all gallery seats taken, hundreds waited outside in hopelessly extended lines.
Georgia Democrat Richard Russell offered the final arguments in opposition. Minority Leader Everett Dirksen, who had enlisted the Republican votes that made cloture a realistic option, spoke for the proponents with his customary eloquence. Noting that the day marked the one-hundredth anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's nomination to a second term, the Illinois Republican proclaimed, in the words of Victor Hugo, "Stronger than all the armies is an idea whose time has come." He continued, "The time has come for equality of opportunity in sharing in government, in education, and in employment. It will not be stayed or denied. It is here!"
Never in history had the Senate been able to muster enough votes to cut off a filibuster on a civil rights bill. And only once in the thirty-seven years since 1927 had it agreed to cloture for any measure.
The clerk proceeded to call the roll. When he reached "Mr. Engle," there was no response. A brain tumor had robbed California's mortally ill Clair Engle of his ability to speak. Slowly lifting a crippled arm, he pointed to his eye, thereby signaling his affirmative vote. Few of those who witnessed this heroic gesture ever forgot it. When Delaware's John Williams provided the decisive sixty-seventh vote, Majority Leader Mike Mansfield exclaimed, "That's it!"; Richard Russell slumped; and Hubert Humphrey beamed. With six wavering senators providing a four-vote victory margin, the final tally stood at 71 to 29. Nine days later the Senate approved the act itself—producing one of the twentieth century's towering legislative achievements.
Source: http://www.senate.gov/learning/min_6h.html
We are talking about The Party of Gore, after all.
Tony
True, perhaps.
But that's because proxies are doing it for him.
"an unprovoked invasion of Iraq threatening to derail the President's admirable just war on Islamicist terror."
Do you perchance have any Joan Baez records in your attic? Time to get'em down! For old time's sake, I mean.
How many innocent people have to die before you realize that there are real enemies of the US that will kill you for no other reason than you are an American? How many innocent people have to die before you realize we have the obligation to protect ourselves from those who try to kill us and the people that enable them?
Was your grandfather's name Neville Chamberlin?
Sounds like Tenet wants us to allow ourselves to be blackmailed.
If we cave over this threat, what will we do when Saddam can hold A-bomb over our heads?
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