http://www.alternet.org/print.html?StoryID=14417

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Kucinich Draws the Line Against War

Rep. Dennis Kucinich, 
The Progressive October 29, 2002


Unilateral military action by the U.S.
against Iraq is unjustified, unwarranted and illegal. The
Administration has failed to make the case that Iraq poses
an imminent threat to the United States. There is no
credible evidence linking Iraq to 9/11. There is no credible
evidence linking Iraq to Al Qaeda. Nor is there any credible
evidence that Iraq possesses deliverable weapons of mass
destruction, or that it intends to deliver them against the
United States.

When Iraq possessed and used weapons of mass destruction,
quite sad to say, it did so with the knowledge of, and
sometimes with materials from, the U.S.

During the Administration of Ronald Reagan, sixty
helicopters were sold to Iraq. Later reports said Iraq used
U.S.-made helicopters to spray Kurds with chemical weapons.
According to The Washington Post, Iraq used mustard gas
against Iran with the help of intelligence from the CIA.

Iraq's punishment? The U.S. reestablished full diplomatic
ties around Thanksgiving of 1984.

Throughout 1989 and 1990, U.S. companies, with the
permission of the first Bush Administration, sent to the
government of Saddam Hussein mustard gas precursors and live
cultures for bacteriological research. U.S. companies also
helped to build a chemical weapons factory and supplied the
West Nile virus, fuel air explosive technology, computers
for weapons technology, hydrogen cyanide precursors,
computers for weapons research and development, and vacuum
pumps and bellows for nuclear weapons plants. "We have met
the enemy," said Walt Kelly's Pogo, "And he is us."

Unilateral action on the part of the U.S., or in partnership
with Great Britain, would for the first time set our nation
on the bloodstained path of aggressive war, a sacrilege upon
the memory of those who fought to defend this country.
America's moral authority would be undermined throughout the
world. It would destabilize the entire Persian Gulf and
Middle East region. And it would signal for Russia to invade
Georgia; China, Taiwan; North Korea, the South; India,
Pakistan.

The U.S. must recommit itself to the U.N. Charter, which is
the framework for international order. We have a right and a
duty to defend ourselves. We also have an obligation to
defend international law. We can accomplish both without
going to war with Iraq.

There is a way out.

It must involve the United Nations. Inspections for weapons
of mass destruction should begin immediately. Inspectors
must have free and unfettered access to all sites.

The time has come for us to end the sanctions against Iraq,
because those sanctions punish the people of Iraq for having
Saddam Hussein as their leader. These sanctions have been



instrumental in causing the deaths of hundreds of thousands
of children. Emergency relief should be expedited. Free
trade, except in arms, must be permitted.

Foreign investments must be allowed. The assets of Iraq
abroad must be restored.

And a regional zone free of weapons of mass destruction
should be established.

The only weapon that can save the world is nonviolence, said
Gandhi. We can begin this practice today by calling upon the
Administration in Washington to stop the talk of war, and
stop the planning for war.

In their heart of hearts, the American people do not want
war on Iraq. The American people want peace.

There is no reason for war against Iraq. Stop the drumbeat.
Stop sending troops and supplies to Kuwait and Qatar. Pull
back from the abyss of unilateral action and preemptive
strikes.

We know that each day the Administration receives a daily
threat assessment. But Iraq is not an imminent threat to
this nation. Forty million Americans suffering from
inadequate health care is an imminent threat. The high cost
of prescription drugs is an imminent threat. The ravages of
unemployment is an imminent threat. The slowdown of the
economy is an imminent threat, and so, too, the devastating
effects of corporate fraud.

We must drop the self-defeating policy of regime change.
Policies of aggression and assassination are not worthy of
any nation with a democratic tradition, let alone a nation
of people who love liberty and whose sons and daughters
sacrifice to maintain that democracy.

The question is not whether or not America has the military
power to destroy Saddam Hussein and Iraq. The question is
whether we destroy something essential in this nation by
asserting that America has the right to do so anytime it
pleases.

America cannot and should not be the world's policeman.
America cannot and should not try to pick the leaders of
other nations. Nor should America and the American people be
pressed into the service of international oil interests and
arms dealers.

We must work to bring Iraq back into the community of
nations, not through destruction, but through constructive
action worldwide. We can help negotiate a resolution with
Iraq that encompasses unfettered inspections, the end of
sanctions and the cessation of the regime-change policy.

We have the power to do this. We must have the will to do
this. It must be the will of the American people expressed
through the direct action of peaceful insistence.

If the U.S. proceeds with a first strike policy, then we
will have taken upon our nation a historic burden of
committing a violation of international law, and we would
then forfeit any moral high ground we could hope to hold.

Representative Dennis Kucinich, Democrat of Ohio, is head of
the Progressive Caucus in Congress.

© 2002 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.