[Peace-discuss] Congressman johnson visit

[Dlind49 at aol.com]

AWARE'S opportunity to met with Congressman Johnson's staff to reinforce our 
position against a preemptive attack on Iraq requires careful research and 
presentation of verified information.  A congressman's ability to prevent 
military action is extremely limited. The upcoming vote wanted by President 
Bush and his administration to provide the U.S. justification for an attack 
and efforts to ensure Congressman Johnson votes "NO" is the wrong issue to 
address. The issues that I think that we need to focus on are:

1. What is the international not national legal authority to permit congress 
to authorize an attack? We must force Congressman Johnson and all other 
members of congress to document under which international laws, treaties, and 
specifically the Law of Land Warfare how the U.S. can even vote to authorize 
an attack. They should also document how they even launch an attack without 
provocation.    This example and proposed action is the same as a group of 
criminals voting to make bank robberies legal.  Thus we need to complete the 
research and provide the legal brief that outlines the illegality of this 
action.    

2. The primary reason as presented in various intelligence briefings and 
political diatribes is that IRAQ possesses and their leaders will use weapons 
of mass destruction against the U.S. and U.S. interests.  Thus several 
concerns must be addressed. 
a. Personal protective Equipment:  This includes the protective mask, 
commonly called a gas mask, and the chemical  protective overgarmet, CPOG. 
U.S. Congressional General  Accounting office investigations, congressional 
testimony, Shay's Commission, and military documents verify that the primary 
mask, the M40, is defective and leaks. Congressman Johnson's staff has 
already verified that he mask is defective. Thus we need to force Congressman 
Johnson and the other members of Congress to pass a resolution preventing the 
deployment of any Department of Defense of other U.S. personnel into a WMD 
threat area while is possession of this mask. Investigations have also 
verified that the CPOG is defective. Thus if our troops are required to 
operate in a hazardous WMD environment they do not posses the equipment 
required to prevent adverse heath effects.
b. Combat readiness: Numerous GAO and military reports verify that our troops 
do not have the required education and training to ensure combat readiness. 
We need to force Congressman Johnson all members of Congress to pass a 
resolution preventing deployment of troops without the training and education 
needed to ensure combat readiness.
c. If the U.S. does find or does suspect the presence of chemical, 
biological, or radiological munitions the use of conventional or even nuclear 
explosives to destroy these in place without confinement at high temperature 
for specific ties will result in the redistribution of these hazardous 
materials into the environment causing adverse health and environmental 
effects.  During Operation Desert Shield, Operation Desert Storm, and 
Operation Desert Farewell; the U.S. military willfully destroyed known WMD's 
in place extensive contamination and consequent health and environmental 
effects. Thus we must ensure that the U.S. does not repeat this action!!      
     
d. Medical care: Medical care for over 221,000 Gulf War I veterans who are 
verified casualties with health problems caused  U.S. and Iraqi action is 
inadequate, Thus with so many known U.S. casualties, coalition casualties 
must be proportional and adverse health problems amongst Iraqi military and 
all other noncombatants in the region must be similar.    This is acceptable 
and unless this can be changed the war should not be initiated. 

All documents exist to verify each of these points and thus we must find, 
collect, analyze, summarize, and present this information to justify our 
requests that he does not support any military action in Iraq of any other 
country. 


These are my recommendations based in extensive experience.