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Friends, For those of us who called Congress to oppose the resolution that promoted war with Iraq, our efforts were rewarded with a softening of the language in the resolution, see article below. The sentiment still remains however, to keep Iraq in the US' crosshairs. I wonder also that the War Party didn't want to pass a resolution that might test its legislative warmaking capacity against that of the Executive's, an ongoing debate as it is. Thanks to all who called Monday and Tuesday! Keep the faith, Philippa Winkler >===== Original Message From Iraqsolidarity@yahoogroups.com ===== Bookmarks to various referenced texts in article itself. met ~~~~~~~~~~ http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=25692 Iraq next U.S. target? Lawmakers, policy analysts debate Saddam's role in terror war ------------------------------------------------------------------------ By Jon Dougherty © 2001 WorldNetDaily.com Although the Bush administration has not officially declared Iraq to be the next target in the U.S.-led war against terror, if ongoing congressional debate on the subject is any indication, many legislators are seeing Baghdad in their crosshairs. Earlier this week, WND reported that Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, in a letter to President Bush, warned that escalating the terror war by attacking Iraq was "dangerous in the extreme" and should not be undertaken unless or until the United States had proof that Iraq helped plan or stage the Sept. 11 attacks. In his letter, Paul reminded Bush that in a Sept.14 resolution, Congress authorized the commander-in-chief to bring military, diplomatic and economic pressure to bear against only "those who attacked the United States." "The president is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on Sept. 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons," the congressional resolution states. After Paul's letter, bolstered by the efforts of Kent Snyder, executive director of The Liberty Committee, the House International Relations Committee softened its language in a resolution passed Thursday calling on the United States to get tougher with Baghdad. The initial measure, called H.J.R. 75 and introduced Dec. 4, called for action against Iraq if, among other things, "the refusal by Iraq to admit United Nations weapons inspectors into any facility covered by the provisions of Security Council Resolution 687" continued. The provision said sustained non-compliance by Baghdad "should be considered an act of aggression against the United States and its allies." But Paul and Snyder said they objected to that language, which they described as needlessly provocative, harsh and tantamount to a declaration of war against Iraq. Those objections may have led to a softening of the tone of the resolution, Paul said yesterday. "I guess we had a minor victory by making them rewrite it, but the sentiment is still there," he told WND. "I think the ultimate goal" of the supporters of the resolution "is to … promote a military conflict with Iraq." House International Relations committee Chairman Henry Hyde, R-Ill., and its ranking minority member, Rep. Tom Lantos, D-Calif., went out of their way during Thursday's session to deny the resolution was aimed at empowering the administration with authority to attack Baghdad, said Snyder. "Henry Hyde and Tom Lantos both stressed in their opening remarks that the bill was not an authorization for President Bush to attack Iraq," Snyder said. "I found it very interesting that both were so deliberate in explaining what the bill was not about. Would they have made the same remarks if the original bill was the one being discussed at the meeting?" "This resolution does not seek to give the president legal authority to use force against Iraq. There is a debate about whether he already has such authority, and I happen to believe that he does, but this resolution does not speak to that question," Hyde said in a statement. "All it says is that Iraq is violating its obligations under international law, and that this violation presents a mounting threat to our nation, to our allies and to international peace and security. These statements are demonstrably true, and the truly dangerous course would be to remain silent in the face of these facts," he added. Snyder sees the denials of Hyde and Lantos as planned responses to Paul's anticipated objections to the measure. "It was obvious to me that Hyde and Lantos were anticipating comments by Dr. Paul," he said. "They know Dr. Paul. They also felt the pressure from thousands of people nationwide who expressed their opposition to the original bill." The resolution "was practically a declaration of war – as close as you could get," Paul told WND. "It says that Saddam Hussein, for 12 years, has been committing aggression against the United States because he doesn't obey a UN resolution." "Of course, the question is, how does Saddam Hussein commit aggression against us since we're 6,000 miles away and it's our airplanes that fly over his land continuously," he said. "We're sort of getting our definitions a bit twisted." Hyde and the 32 other members of his committee – Paul was the only dissenter – who voted to support the resolution say more attention should be paid to Iraq by the United States because of Baghdad's continued quest for weapons of mass destruction. "Since 1998, Saddam’s ability to reconstitute his nuclear weapons program, his biological weapons program, his chemical weapons program and his long-range missile program has not been constrained by international inspectors," Hyde said Thursday. "There is every reason to believe that Saddam has taken advantage of the absence of inspectors to revive these weapons programs," he continued. "The events of Sept. 11 demonstrate the severity of this threat to the United States, and indeed to all civilized countries." William Niskanen, chairman of the CATO Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based Libertarian think tank, agreed that Iraq should not be the next terror-war target unless proof of Baghdad's Sept. 11 complicity is presented to the American people. "The Bush Administration should not follow a successful prosecution of the war in Afghanistan with another war in Iraq unless they present conclusive evidence … that Saddam helped finance, organize or implement the Sept. 11 attacks, or that he has supplied weapons of mass destruction to some terrorist group to use against American lives and property," Niskanen said during a CATO-sponsored forum on Iraq Wednesday. The forum's other expert, former CIA Director James Woolsey, favored action against Iraq, but only if the United States accomplished certain objectives first. Woolsey said the United States would first have to destroy Iraq's somewhat extensive air defenses, so American and coalition aircraft would have control of the skies. "If we did that successfully, the Republican Guard or any other Iraqi divisions, the loyalty of which in the latter case is extremely doubtful as far as Saddam is concerned, but even the Republican Guard, about half-strength of what it was in 1991, has no place to hide," he said. The former CIA director said the United States would need essentially only one ally – Turkey – for use of its airbases in attacks against Iraq. Woolsey speculated about an Iraq free of Saddam Hussein after a successful U.S. campaign: "I believe in this relatively sophisticated and well-educated country, one of the most technologically and socially advanced countries until Saddam took over in the Muslim world, I believe that we would have a very good chance of bringing a reasonable and democratic regime to power to Iraq within months." Other experts have said there is also more than just circumstantial evidence that Saddam is rebuilding his weapons-of-mass-destruction programs. Dr. Khidir Hamza, an American-educated scientist and former director of Baghdad's nuclear weapons program, told lawmakers this week that Saddam will possess at least three nuclear missiles by 2005. "When I left, we designed one missile" and were acquiring the materials from foreign stockpiles to build it, he said, adding that his estimate was most likely conservative. "I don't think there's a debate about whether or not to take out Saddam Hussein – I think if any member of Congress had a magic wand, they would eliminate him immediately," the co-chair of the congressional task force hearing Hamza's testimony, Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., told Fox News. "The question is whether we have the military capacity to undertake that and to manage it if a civil war were to break out. We're trying to determine that by listening to the expert," he added. Paul remained undeterred. "[Hamza] is one person, and he is contradicting everything others who have been in Iraq have said," Paul noted. "Then again, even if he's right, I don't believe this one person should dictate the whole consensus." "We know there's a possibility" that Iraq could be making progress on the development of weapons of mass destruction – and especially nuclear weapons, Paul said. "But we know that the North Koreans are much further along. We know that China has them. We know that other nations have them. The Russians had them, and they were pointed at us for 40 years, but we kept talking to them. "The idea that Saddam Hussein is strong enough to attack the United States is, quite frankly, preposterous," Paul said. "Have there been any inspections of Iraq since 1998? Many people say no," said Snyder. "But the International Atomic Energy Agency has been there twice since then, and they can't find any evidence that Saddam's program is advancing. "Scott Ritter, the former chief UN weapons inspector, has stated that Iraq doesn't have the capability that they are often attributed to have," Snyder added. "If we bomb Iraq, then we, as a nation, should debate the issue, and Congress should have a recorded vote on a declaration of war against Iraq" and not "hide behind a UN resolution." ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~--> Tiny Wireless Camera under $80! Order Now! FREE VCR Commander! Click Here - Only 1 Day Left! http://us.click.yahoo.com/75YKVC/7.PDAA/ySSFAA/7TwplB/TM ---------------------------------------------------------------------~-> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: Iraqsolidarity-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ -- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- This is a discussion list run by the Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq For removal from list, email soc-casi-discuss-request@lists.cam.ac.uk CASI's website - www.casi.org.uk - includes an archive of all postings.