Posted on 02/17/2003 4:16:09 PM PST by Recovering_Democrat
Mr. President, this is my thirty-ninth year in Congress. This is my thirty-third year in the U.S. Senate. I have cast a total of 12,822 votes during these thirty-nine years in Congress.
This vote today troubles me. I have cast difficult votes before: For example, in the case of the Panama Canal treaties and the Civil Rights Act of 1964. There are three or four votes that I regret having cast, one of them being my vote in opposition to the 1964 Civil Rights Act. But this vote today I think, Mr. President, may be the most important vote that I shall have cast in my career, certainly up to this point.
I represent a state that is a patriotic state. My state is second to none in the number of men who died in the Korean War and in the Vietnam War--the percentage of deaths in proportion to the eligible male population at that time.
Stonewall Jackson, one of the greatest of all generals, was born in Clarksburg, what is now West Virginia. I was born during the administration of Woodrow Wilson in 1917 during the First World War. My mother died when I was a little less than one year old on Armistice Day of 1918.
So, Mr. President, coming from a state which broke away from the Old Dominion during the Civil War to become the thirty-fifth star in the galaxy of stars; coming from a state, the motto of which is "Mountaineers are always free"; coming from this background, my natural instincts are to support the president today.
The spirit of patriotism has a natural force which urges me in that direction, not just because it is President Bush or not just because the president seeks a vote in support of the second resolution which will be voted on today, but because there is that spirit of patriotism that runs in the veins of the Anglo-Saxon and Germanic peoples and those from southern and eastern Europe who hewed the forests and fought the savages and plowed the fields of West Virginia.
That would be my first instinct, my "gut" reaction, my "gut" feeling, to use a somewhat familiar idiom.
But the question before the Senate today is too grave a question to be decided by the neigh of a horse or by a gut feeling. It is one which engages the heart and the mind as well as the visceral impulse, and so I have sought to bring my mind and heart and all that is within me to bear on this grave issue.
Mr. President, what is the question? The question, as I see it, is whether the Senate will stamp its imprimatur on the second resolution which authorizes the president to go to war at any time after midnight on Tuesday next, January 15, unless provoked by Iraq before that time, or whether to support and vote for the first resolution, of which I am a cosponsor, and which would say to the president, "Stay the course yet a little while; let sanctions have more time."
It is not an easy decision for me. Socrates, when asked whether it was better to marry or not, replied, "Whichever you do, you will repent it."
Mr. President, I will not repent the vote that I am about to cast, and that is that we stay the course for now, give peace a further chance to work. Its pulse beat is not dead. It is still alive. Let us not cut off the life support mechanism just yet.
There are those who say that it is up to Hussein as to whether or not we go over the brink next Tuesday after midnight. Mr. President, that is our decision and not Hussein's.
Fabius Buteo was the head of the Roman delegation that called on the council of Carthage in the year 218 B.C. The Romans delivered an ultimatum to the Carthaginian council. The question was whether or not the Carthaginian council chose war or peace. Fabius Buteo said that within the fold of his toga he held both war and peace and asked the Carthaginian council, "Which do you choose?" The council answered, "It is your choice." Fabius then, with a symbolic gesture, said, "Then I will let fall war." And the Carthaginian council shouted, "We accept it." And so it was in this very casual way that these two great Mediterranean powers in that day chose to go to war, a war which Livy, the Roman historian, who lived between the years 59 B.C. and 17 A.D., characterized as "the most memorable of all wars" ever waged--the Second Punic War.
Mr. President, I think that we stand at a moment so grave and that the responsibility is so great upon us that we should not cavalierly be hurried into an action that may cost this country its treasure and its blood beyond what the cost may be otherwise if we stay the course for yet a little time.
Decisions of war and peace are the gravest choices that political leaders of our country are ever called on to make. In these decisions, our duty as leaders of a free society is to act judiciously above all else, keeping in mind our national interests as we discern those interests from the coldest facts.
Right now, the gravity of the choices facing the president and the Congress requires us to assess our national interests by a totally calm and rational standard. We ought not personalize or politicize the looming conflict. To do so would cloud our judgment at a time in our lives and in our careers that demands from us absolute lucidity.
We would make a mistake in going to war to kick someone's rear. I will not use the word that has been heard around here. We all know what is meant. We should not go to war in vengeance and indignation, or through any emotional distraction that might shorten our ability rationally to judge the outcome of our actions or the ways in which that outcome might affect our long-term national interests.
Mr. President, those who will oppose the first resolution and support the second resolution say that we are at our peak now, our legions are brimful, our cause is ripe; that "we must take the current when it serves or lose our ventures."
Mr. President, delay does not help Saddam. Delay will help the United States. We can use that time. Delay will cause Saddam to need additional spare parts. It will cost him in new equipment. It will cost him in treasure. He has no additional reservoir from which to get his manpower, nothing like that which the United States has. The United States can restore spare parts. It can restore equipment that has been cannibalized for spare parts. Saddam cannot.
We are told that the coalition may fall apart if we delay. Mr. President, I do not believe that. If a coalition will fall apart staying the course with sanctions, and the embargo, which has been overwhelmingly supported by the United Nations, then what might we expect the coalition to do if there is a war?
They say that American support may dwindle; the support of the American people may lessen. I do not believe that. I think that the support of the American people will grow if we measure our actions, let the embargo have more time, and let diplomacy work.
Mr. President, this is one senator who, while he will not vote today to authorize war as of one minute past midnight next Tuesday, January 15, this senator will vote for a declaration of war a few months down the road. I have said this to the president of the United States at the White House.
I believe the support here in the Senate would be stronger for such an authorization six months from today. Why not six months? It was earlier envisaged that it might take a year or longer for the sanctions to work. Another six months would not total a year.
I think the consensus would be stronger here in the Senate if we measure our actions, and be patient. There are those who say, well, there is a religious holiday coming, and we should act before the religious holiday. The Ramadan will begin, as I understand it, on March 17 and end on April 16. And then there are the intensely warm months of June, July, and August.
There are those who say let us hurry, let us get our bid in, let us act now before the religious holiday, and before the hot months arrive.
Mr. President, Machiavelli advised the prince to study history; to study those who made war and to study the reasons for their victories or their defeats, so that one would emulate the former and avoid the latter; and he advised the prince to choose someone whom the Prince should emulate, as Alexander the Great did Achilles, as Caesar did Alexander the Great, and as Scipio Africanus did Cyrus.
Byron said "History with all her volumes vast, hath but one page." Mr. President, let us consult history.
In 218, Hannibal had just crossed the Alps and lost 20,000 of his men out of the 46,000 who left the Rhone River just sixteen or eighteen days before. At the battle of the Trebbia, he was confronted with two Roman consular armies. The Roman military system consisted of two or more consular armies. There were two consuls, each elected for one year. Each consul had command of two legions. So, there were at least four legions facing Hannibal at the battle of the Trebbia.
The two Roman consuls were Publius Cornelius Scipio and Tiberius Sempronius Longus. Longus wanted to rush into battle with Hannibal. Scipio advised waiting through the winter, biding their time.
Longus was impetuous and eager to fight immediately. A battle was fought. Longus lost the battle, and, with it, fifteen thousand men.
Mr. President, here, too, we are confronted with a weather problem. There is no doubt about it. But that will pass in time. We can utilize that time to good advantage.
Some say the United States will suffer if we do not support the president. I took an oath, Mr. President, to support and defend, not the president of the United States, whether he be a Democrat, such as Jimmy Carter, or a Republican like Ronald Reagan or George Bush, but to defend the Constitution of the United States. That is where my responsibility lies, and I intend to do that.
I think it is better to be wise than simply tough. Patience does not damage prestige. Our prestige will not suffer if President Bush does not win this vote.
What about the future prestige of our country in the Middle East if we go to war now? As Admiral Crowe summed it up in recent hearings:
Even in winning, we could lose. Dealing effectively in the Arab world will take all our resources of creativity and patience. And, thus, even a quick "knockout" of Iraqi forces may well unleash a cascade of outcomes and reactions that reduce our long-term ability to influence events in that region.
We are tied to the complexities of the Middle East in part because of oil dependency and energy reality, which might not be so severe if the Reagan administration had not dismantled the national energy policy that I put into place with Scoop Jackson and others in this Senate when I was majority leader during the presidency of President Carter. But that is behind us. That national energy policy was dismantled. We have done little since to solve the energy dependency situation.
Meanwhile, we have been able to accomplish next to nothing to solve the Palestinian crisis. These and the continued stark discrepancy between the haves and the have-nots in the Middle East, fueling a growing anti-Western Arab nationalism, are in the deep contours of the Middle East landscape. Unless we roll up our sleeves on these fundamental questions in the region and work with a true international coalition to solve them, we will have no end to the series of sorry episodes that have weighted us down for more than a decade now.
War will not solve the root problems of the Middle East; we have said that, and we have known it. Only with a long-term commitment with resolve, patience, dedication, and the will to succeed, will we be able to address the complexities of the region.
It is said that sanctions are not working. Mr. President, sanctions are working. Saddam's spare parts cannot be replenished. His equipment that is cannibalized for the purpose of securing spare parts cannot be made whole again. With us, it is different.
I have been a strong supporter of the president's decisive action to respond to the defensive needs of Saudi Arabia and to punish Iraq for its invasion of Kuwait through an economic embargo. These twin goals have been largely successful up to now.
Who expected them to work completely by now? Even the president did not expect them to work so quickly. Meantime, Saudi Arabia has been safeguarded from Iraqi invasion. And the economic stranglehold being tightened around Iraq's economy has not only denied Hussein any economic benefit from the aggression, but has also begun to cripple the Iraqi economy. These actions have enjoyed substantial and continued support from the American people and from the Congress, as well as from the international community.
Mr. President, I say to those who say sanctions are not working: have we forgotten so soon the celebrations of last year when we so correctly congratulated ourselves on the crumbling of the Soviet Empire in Eastern Europe, after more than forty years? Forty years of patience, willpower, strength, and resolve. We were patient for forty years. What has happened to that patience?
Let us remember the lessons of history. Edward Gibbon wrote of the Battle of Hadrianople. The Roman Empire was divided into the western empire and the eastern empire. Valens was the emperor of the east. He was the brother of Valentinian, and the uncle of Gratian, who was the emperor of the west. The Goths had gathered just a dozen miles from Hadrianople. Gratian, emperor of the west, was on his way to assist his uncle, the emperor of the east, but Valens was impetuous. He did not want to wait and share the glory of a victory over the Goths with Gratian, his nephew. So Valens rushed on to the field, and in one afternoon, two-thirds of the Roman army was destroyed. Almost as many Romans were killed and captured as died at the Battle of Cannae in 216 B.C. Had Valens exercised patience until Gratian could arrive with his legions, the Romans might have won, and the Goths might have been defeated. Valens lost his life in the battle.
Mr. President, a superpower does not have to be impatient. Aristotle told the story that had been related to him by Antisthenes, a sardonic fable about the hares and the lions. The hares addressed the assembly and demanded that all should have equality. But the lions said, "Where are your claws and your teeth?"
Mr. President, a superpower has claws and has teeth. A superpower, as against this Third World power, does not have to be impatient or impetuous. A superpower does not have to feel rushed. We can afford to be patient and let sanctions work.
They say the morale of our soldiers will suffer if we give the embargo more time to work. Mr. President, we should have thought about this before we proceeded to double our forces in Saudi Arabia and terminate the rotation policy in the Middle East. Nothing damages morale more than early, large losses of life.
Mr. President, the nation is fixated on the so-called countdown or the deadline established by the United Nations resolution demanding that Iraq evacuate its forces from Kuwait by January 15.
Such self-imposed pressures need not dominate our provisions about what actions to take in the Persian Gulf. The UN resolution only asks member governments to decide for themselves how best to implement the demand that Iraq evacuate Kuwait. Why are we in such a rush to go to war when many avenues of diplomacy are apparently still being explored by the United Nations, by the French, by the Soviet Union and others?
Mr. President, how much time do I have remaining?
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The senator from West Virginia, the president pro tempore, has 13½ minutes remaining of this time.
Mr. BYRD. I thank the Chair.
Mr. President, the sanctions are working. Nobody disputes that. Granted, they have not yet accomplished the goal of driving Saddam out of Kuwait. But who would expect them to have done that in these few short months. I heard the distinguished senator from Georgia [Mr. NUNN] say yesterday, I believe, that Saddam Hussein had not been able to sell one drop of oil. Oil is the backbone of the Iraqi economy, and without the sale of oil, Hussein's currency is going to dry up. He will not be able to buy anything after yet a little while. So the pressure on Saddam increases.
Mr. President, we ourselves could use that time; we could use the time for another six months. Let Ramadan pass. Let the hot months of June and July and August pass. We could make good use of that time.
I recently read that an American general said that our forces are not ready yet to go on the offensive. A little more time would enable our forces to get ready. I cannot believe that our forces would not benefit from additional training in the desert, that they might become better acclimated to that harsh climate. A little more time, and all the buildup that we have read about can then be in place.
Mr. President, I have been disconcerted by reading that there is still a divided command in the desert; that we have not yet unified all of the allied forces under one command. Mr. President, I think it would be a mistake to go on the offensive until there is a unified command. I am not a military man. I never served in any war. I built ships in World War II. I was a welder in shipyards in Baltimore, Maryland, and Tampa, Florida. But common sense would tell me, there should be only one commander at the top.
Again, let us resort to history. Hannibal, who has been proclaimed by some as "the greatest soldier that the world has ever seen," knew that under the Roman military system there was a divided command. There were two consuls. Each had two legions. And there was jealousy between the two consuls. Hannibal knew this. He did not have this problem. Hannibal exercised a single command; there was one brain and one will behind his planning, his designs, and his actions.
At the battle of Cannae, which took place on August 2, 216 B.C., Paulus and Varro, the two Roman consuls, were at variance. Varro wanted to meet Hannibal on the plain. Paulus wanted to meet Hannibal in a hillier region. They daily rotated their commands and on August 2, it was Varro's day to command all of the Roman legions. Both Livy and Polybius, the Roman historian and the Greek historian, respectively, agree that there were eight Roman legions, 5,000 men in a legion, 40,000 Romans with an equal number of allies, totaling 80,000 foot soldiers and horsemen, but the wind, the sun, and the dust were in the faces of the Romans that afternoon. The Roman armies were devastated. It was Hannibal's greatest victory in his fifteen years in Italy. That was the lesson of Cannae. That was the lesson of a divided command.
Fabius Maximus initiated a policy of cunctatio, "putting off" or avoiding battle with Hannibal's forces, knowing that Hannibal, like Saddam Hussein, could not replenish his resources. He could win battles, but he could not take walls and earthened works around cities.
Knowing that Hannibal would run out of "spare parts"--he had lost his elephants, and, in time, he lost his Nubian horsemen, his excellent cavalry--Fabius Maximus implemented his policy of cunctatio, patience, avoid a battle just now, let Hannibal's forces decline by attrition. In the long run, the policy of avoiding battle with Hannibal proved to be effective.
Mr. President, a majority of the American people do not believe that we should rush into war immediately. I now read from the Washington Post of January 11, this paragraph:
While most Americans appear willing to go to war at some point after Tuesday if Iraq continues to occupy Kuwait, the latest Post-ABC poll continues to show that only a minority of Americans want that war to begin when the deadline expires.
Mr. President, something should be said about the cost of a war in treasure. We are going to end up paying for most of Operation Desert Shield ourselves, as we will discover when the supplemental appropriations measures are submitted. We will end up fueling our deficit with a war and borrowing from the Germans and Japanese at Treasury bill auctions to fund our budget deficit because they would not provide the money up front to help us.
Our projected deficit, as of now, for fiscal year 1991 is $320 billion. This is an American operation with a superficial covering of internationalism. It is a bitter pill for the American people to swallow, coated with the noble embroidery of international collective burden sharing, and they will be swallowing the economic consequences of such a war for years to come.
According to the Veterans' Administration, 72,000 World War I veterans are alive today, after seventy-three years; 8.6 million World War II veterans are living; 3.9 million veterans of the Korean war are living; 7.7 million Vietnam veterans are alive. Society will be paying for health care and pensions for these veterans for many years to come, as we should.
For fiscal year 1991, the Veterans' Administration will provide in pension payments, readjustment benefits, and support for the Home Loan Guarantee Program in the amounts broken out by specific war service: World War I, $737 million; World War II, $11.3 billion; Korean war, $3.3 billion; Vietnam, $8.3 billion; total $23.637 billion. So, if war comes, the U.S. government will be paying the costs for decades to come.
Mr. President, there is a serious question of burden sharing here. I was provoked and insulted and embittered when I read in the Washington Post of Saturday, January 5, an Associated Press story headlined "Japanese Application to Gulf Ended."
And I now read therefrom:
Japan's lone aid team in Saudi Arabia has returned home, and officials were unsure today whether the government would send more.
The seven doctors and nurses who made up Japan's second medical team all had left by Dec. 28, the Foreign Ministry said today, ending a mission plagued by too few volunteers and what critics say is the Japanese people's unwillingness to consider Iraq's occupation of Kuwait their problem.
Both missions drew only a total of two dozen volunteers. Two ministry officials who accompanied the second team are the only Japanese personnel still among the more than half-million U.S.-led troops massed in the Persian Gulf region.
Critics say Japan's inability to put together a 100-member medical team as promised in September reflects an insular mentality that has undercut government efforts to do more than send $4 billion to help pay for the troop deployment and aid poor states in the area that have suffered from boycotting Iraq.
"We are still not sure whether we really can . . . make a meaningful contribution," said a Foreign Ministry official, speaking on condition of anonymity. He said another medical mission was possible but `has not been worked out yet.'
In a poll last month, 62 percent of Japanese questioned opposed sending anything more than financial aid to the gulf.
So, Mr. President, while the American people will send their doctors to the Persian Gulf, while the American people will do without adequate medical care, will do without their medical personnel to a high degree, the Japanese will not even send a volunteer team--a volunteer medical mission to the Persian Gulf.
Mr. President, the United States is working nearly alone in this effort. It is clear that many, if not most, of our major allies in Europe do not share our enthusiasm for this adventure. Money is not pouring into our treasury in a genuine burden-sharing act by our allies. The administration is about to embark on the second phase of "Operation Tin Cup." We have to go around begging for contributions for this effort.
I salute and congratulate the president of the United States and Secretary Baker for the leadership that they have demonstrated, for their dedication, for their skill, and for their success to a point, in marshaling the strength of the United Nations behind this effort.
But the total amount of cash and in-kind contributions provided by our allies as of the last report from DOD is less than $5 billion, an embarrassingly small sum. According to that report, the Germans have provided some $272 million and the Japanese some $426 million. Together, the two economic giants of Germany and Japan have hardly spoken eloquently with their pocketbooks. They have only opted to hold our coats, while we take on Hussein.
Mr. President, I think this is a shame and a disgrace, that Germany and Japan, two countries which will benefit far more than will the United States, two countries whose dependence on the oil from the Middle East far exceeds our own need, will stand by and cynically watch American men and women shed their blood in the sands of the Arabian desert and refuse to help to finance, from their treasuries, the cost of this effort.
Mr. President, I have difficulty finding the words adequately to express my feeling that such nations would stand by. It is a monstrous disgrace and the American people will remember it.
Mr. President, Herodotus wrote of the words that Croesus spoke to Cyrus the Great, that "peace was better than war because in peace the sons did bury their fathers, while in war the fathers did bury their sons." How appropriate at this moment.
Mr. President, let Hussein get no comfort from the vote today. I anticipate that the resolution offered by Senator NUNN and others will not carry. But, as the chairman of the Appropriations Committee, I can assure Mr. Hussein that there will be no division here if war comes.
I pray that the president will exercise patience and take time. He has it within his hands. But Saddam must know that we will all stand together and that, whatever the cost, the Senate will do its duty. We will not let down our men and our women in the Middle East.
Mr. President, I know what it is to lose a grandson, and I know that there are many fathers and mothers and grandparents and wives and brothers and sisters who pray each night that their sons and daughters, their relatives, will come back home safely. I know what it is to lose a grandson. The greatest sorrow of my life was the loss of Michael. Let us hope for the best.
So, Mr. President, in the words of the Epistle to the Hebrews, "Let us run with patience the race that is set before us."
If he were a Republican, the press would rip into him every time he took the floor. But Bobby Byrd is a pork-lovin' Demon-rat, so he gets a pass.
He speaks in two hundred year old english. How about 100 mg of haldol IM and a posey vest?
He speaks in two hundred year old english. How about 100 mg of haldol IM and a posey vest?
The only reason the dems want bush to wait is that it will be more difficult to fight in the summer. The longer we wait, the more american soldiers will come home in body bags. These dems are true bastards. They dont give a shit about our soldiers, they just want to make bush look bad.
Often lost in statistics such as yours are all that were injured, maimed, and are now suffering from exposure to various gases and chemicals.
By the way, I thought we were right for going in last time.
It would be nice if someone here could answer some of the questions I posed in my first post. Want to take a stab at it?
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