[Peace] Fwd: FCNL: Legislative Action Message (09/05/02)

Fri Sep 6 10:55:33 CDT 2002

>Date: Thu, 5 Sep 2002 16:37:54 -0400 (EDT)
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>Subject: FCNL: Legislative Action Message (09/05/02)
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>FCNL LEGISLATIVE ACTION MESSAGE - September 5, 2002
>
>The following action items from the Friends Committee on National
>Legislation (FCNL) focus on federal policy issues currently before Congress
>or the Administration.
>
>TOPIC: OPPOSE EXPANDED WAR WITH IRAQ
>
>Responding to growing demands from Congress and many leading members of his
>own party, this week (Sept. 4), President Bush promised congressional
>leaders that he would seek congressional authorization before taking further
>military action against Iraq.  Next week (Sept. 12), President Bush will
>take his case for international action against Saddam Hussein's regime to
>the United Nations.  So far, he has not made any promises that he will seek
>specific authorization from the UN Security Council before the U.S. takes
>further military action.
>
>On Capitol Hill, members of Congress on both sides of the aisle are
>beginning to ask the tough questions that must be asked when a nation is
>considering war.  Members of Congress are beginning to sense a groundswell
>of popular opposition to war.  An opening for critical questioning, debate,
>and dissent is beginning to appear.
>
>Soon, members of the Senate Armed Services Committee will have their chance
>to ask questions about the Administration's plans.  Later this month,
>members of the Senate Foreign Relations and House International Relations
>Committees will have opportunities to ask questions.
>
>ACTION: Please contact your senators. Urge them to ask critical questions at
>upcoming hearings.  Let them know that you oppose expanding the war against
>Iraq.  War against Iraq is no way to reduce the threat of weapons of mass
>destruction, reduce terrorism, or bring to justice those involved in the
>attacks of 9/11.  Iraq's compliance with UN Security Council resolutions
>must be addressed by the Security Council through peaceful, multilateral,
>diplomatic means, including the resumption of UN weapons inspections, not by
>unilateral, preemptive U.S. military force.
>
>USE FCNL'S WEB SITE TO MAKE LETTER-WRITING EASIER:  Start with the sample
>letter posted in our Legislative Action Center, personalize the language,
>then email or fax your message directly from our site.  You can also print
>it out and mail it.  To view the sample letter, click on the link below,
>then enter your zip code and click <Go> in the <Take Action Now> box.  Here
>is the link: <http://capwiz.com/fconl/issues/alert/?alertid=454751&type=CO>.
>
>BACKGROUND: In August, the Vice President and others in the Administration
>began a concerted effort to present to the American public and governments
>overseas the moral case for military action against Saddam Hussein.  Vice
>President Cheney believes that Iraq will soon develop nuclear weapons and
>that, as a nuclear power, Iraq will "seek domination of the entire Middle
>East, take control of a great portion of the world's energy supplies,
>directly threaten America's friends throughout the region, and subject the
>United States or any other nation to nuclear blackmail."  (CQ Weekly,
>8/31/02)  He and other prominent members of the Bush Administration believe
>that the U.S. must be prepared to take preemptive, unilateral military
>action, if necessary, to prevent Saddam Hussein from becoming a greater
>threat to U.S. national security and interests overseas.
>
>The Administration has yet to produce (publicly) compelling evidence that
>the government of Iraq has assembled or is about to assemble nuclear weapons
>or that Iraq has the capability (e.g. long range missiles) to threaten the
>existence of another country with nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons.
>
>
>To the contrary, an August 28 Issue Brief, the Non-Proliferation Project of
>the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace concludes the opposite.
>"Iraq almost certainly does not have nuclear weapons; but it certainly does
>have large numbers of chemical weapons and some biological weapons or
>agents.  It does not have any missiles or planes that could strike the
>United States from its territory and it has very few that could deliver
>these weapons more than a few miles outside its borders.  These capabilities
>are, and have been for over twenty years, a threat to Iraq's neighbors and
>to its own people.  Allied military operations destroyed many of these
>capabilities during the 1991 Gulf War and United Nations weapons inspectors
>destroyed many times more facilities, missiles and weapons after the war." (
>www.ProliferationNews.org )
>
>Members of the Administration are reportedly divided over when and how to
>bring pressure to bear on the Iraqi regime.  Secretary of State Powell is
>advocating building an international coalition to support military action.
>If necessary, he has stated, the U.S. should support the return of UN
>weapons inspectors to Iraq as part of this process.  Yet Vice President
>Cheney has indicated little interest in this approach, saying "A return of
>inspectors would provide no assurance whatsoever of his [Saddam Hussein's]
>compliance with UN resolutions."  (CQ Weekly, 8/31/02)
>
>Many current U.S. military leaders, reportedly, have expressed caution about
>using U.S. military force to unseat Saddam Hussein.  They do not believe
>that an invasion would be a "cakewalk" over Iraqi Republican Guards as some
>proponents of invasion have predicted.  Nor do they see a clear exit
>strategy or political resolution in a post-war Iraq.  Instead, they see the
>potential for high casualties and years of costly and dangerous
>peacekeeping.
>
>The President's special advisor to the Middle East, Gen. (Ret.) Anthony
>Zinni, observed recently "It might be interesting to wonder why all the
>generals see it the same way, and all those that never fired a shot in anger
>and are really hell-bent to go to war see it a different way....Our
>relationships in the region are in major disrepair, not to the point where
>we can't fix them, but we need to quit making enemies we don't need to make
>enemies out of....There's a deep chasm growing between that part of the
>world and our part of the world....It is the wrong time. You could create a
>backlash to regimes that are friendly to us....[I]n the end, the [American]
>people are going to have to decide if this -- if the threat is there, and
>the case is going to have to be made to them."  (National Public Radio,
>8/23/02)
>
>It has been reported the President Bush, while on vacation, read a book
>(Supreme Command, by Eliot Cohen) that presents the thesis that great
>leaders in the past owed their ultimate triumph in war to the fact that they
>ignored the overly cautious advice of their generals (Alan Beattie,
>Financial Times, 8/24/02).  Among the supreme commanders who ignored their
>generals, those supporting military action most often point to Abraham
>Lincoln and Winston Churchill.  But Lincoln and Churchill were in
>circumstances far different from Mr. Bush today: they were fighting an
>overt, engaged enemy for the very survival of the United States and Great
>Britain, respectively.  Saddam Hussein poses no such dire threat to the
>existence of the United States.  Moreover, this knife cuts both ways.  Mr.
>Bush, as he ponders his course of action, should also keep in mind the fate
>of supreme commanders who ignored the advice of their generals, whether the
>generals were aggressive (Japan's attack against the United States) or
>reticent (Germany's attack against the Soviet Union).  The point is, there
>are no guarantees once war is unleashed.
>
>CONTACTING LEGISLATORS
>
>Capitol Switchboard: 202-224-3121
>
>Sen. ________
>U.S. Senate
>Washington, DC 20510
>
>Rep. ________
>U.S. House of Representatives
>Washington, DC 20515
>
>Information on your members is available on FCNL's web site:
>http://capwiz.com/fconl/dbq/officials/directory/directory.dbq?command=congdi
>r
>
>CONTACTING THE ADMINISTRATION
>
>White House Comment Desk: 202-456-1111
>FAX: 202-456-2461
>E-MAIL: president at whitehouse.gov
>WEB PAGE: http://www.whitehouse.gov
>
>President George W. Bush
>The White House
>Washington, DC 20500
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>We seek an earth restored...