FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 9, 2002

 Contact: Josh Freed
(202) 225-4431

WASHINGTON, DC – U.S. Representative Diana DeGette (D-CO) spoke on the floor of the House of Representatives in opposition to the resolution allowing use of military force against Iraq.

I commend the President for his vigilant efforts to protect the security of the United States. We stand united in our commitment to this cause. But there are legitimate differences about the best way to protect our Nation.

The President has failed to present clear and convincing evidence to Congress that unilateral military action against Iraq at this time is justified. We have seen over the last 10 years that Iraq is trying to amass chemical, biological and perhaps even nuclear weapons. But we have seen no evidence of their success, and we have seen no evidence of a delivery system.

I would ask, given the evidence we have today, is this reason why we should vote for this resolution which essentially gives the President unfettered ability to go into Iraq with a first strike military attack in a unilateral fashion, potentially destabilizing the entire world order at this time? I say it does not.

Why are we discussing a war with Iraq right now? What has changed in the last 10 years to make the threat from Iraq imminent? So imminent, in fact, that Congress has got to rush to pass this resolution now before we can let the weapons inspectors back in, before we can find any evidence of an imminent threat? What information have we have recently obtained that has led the President to believe the war is absolutely necessary now?

Many of us in Congress felt that it was essential that the President come to Congress for action before he attacked another country unilaterally, and we were pleased when he did come to Congress; but if he is going to come to us and ask us to pass this type of resolution, he has to give us the information on which we can base our vote, and to date, I have not, and many Members of Congress, no one I know, has been given information by the administration that Iraq indeed poses an imminent threat to the United States. We must have that information before we can pass a resolution like this, especially since the U.N. Security Council is working hard to send weapons inspectors back in and to have international cooperation in dealing with Iraq and in dealing with Saddam Hussein.

International cooperation and the support of the United States people are what will make any action against Iraq successful, just as we had success in our initial action in Afghanistan. I might add, I have had myself now over 3,000 phone calls and letters from my constituents and congressional office, and five have supported this type of uninformed unilateral action. This is not the support of the United States people.

Some of my colleagues have made the tortured analogy that we face the same challenge with Saddam Hussein that our predecessors did with Adolph Hitler in 1936; but Iraq is not Nazi Germany, as evil as they are. We have been given no evidence that the Iraqi military has grown stronger in the 10 years since 1991. We have been given no evidence that Iraq intends to cross its borders into Turkey, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia or Iran, as it did in 1991 when the U.S. did intervene; and we have been given no evidence that Iraq is close to possessing nuclear weapons, merely that it would like to.

If the President has acquired intelligence that answers these questions, he must provide it to Congress and let us know because today he is asking Congress to authorize unilateral action against Iraq. This is a not a debate about appeasement versus action. We must not and cannot try to appease someone like Saddam Hussein; but what it is is a question of acting alone or at most with one ally versus building a global coalition as we did 11 years ago to oppose Iraq's aggression against a peaceful neighbor. To triumph in this effort we must do that again.

The United States is at a crossroads in the war against terrorism. To this point, we have shown the world the threat posed by terrorists to our national security. We have successfully built an international coalition to combat this threat, and together we have led the coalition to rout terrorism from its role in Afghanistan. This is the path we must take, and that is why we must oppose this resolution today.
 
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