A Hawkish statement from Kerry on March 18, 2003

He favored more negotiations, but did he have to give up?

http://www.cfr.org/publication.php?id=5722

<snip>

"Even having botched the diplomacy, it is the duty of any President, in the final analysis, to defend this nation and dispel the security threats - threats both immediate and longer term - against it."

"Saddam Hussein has brought military action upon himself by refusing for twelve years to comply with the mandates of the United Nations. The brave and capable men and women of our armed forces and those who are with us will quickly , I know, remove him once and for all as a threat to his neighbors, to the world, and to his own people, and I support their doing so."

<snip>

I am sure that 10 minutes later, this Bonesman sob from Boston waffled into the opposite direction, as he has so many times during his carefully staged and cultivated public career.

I am usually as very calm guy. But I am getting really upset.

For the Nth time: “IWR = Pro-War” is a wedge tactic invented by Kerry opponents. It is not the truth. Kerry vocally opposed war except as a last resort against imminent treat. It is totally infuriating that vicious remarks from Anti-War Dems regarding Kerry’s IWR vote continue apace, especially since Kerry, against all odd, without the big endorsements or the big money, took this issue to the voters of Iowa and won hands down.

Infuriating, also, because these remarks show so little consciousness of the
U.S. role in the region, so little guilt regarding complicity in the Iraqi
tragedy, the millions dead, the abominable poisons that fell on the enemies of
Saddam with U.S. acquiescence -- and for U.S. geopolitical goals. It is
infuriating that newly minted minions of a newly reborn peace-marcher can
see only black or white. They cannot understand that, as much as it was
atrociously criminal to do what the Bush did in 2003, it was just as evil to do
nothing but maintain people-punishing sanctions while the multi-decade reign of
atrocities of “our man in Bagdad” continued. There was a better way, and that
is what John Kerry, and the French and the Germans, and the Russians and the
Chinese, and the Canadians, and the Mexicans ….. voted for with UN 1441.

I repeat here my personal argument for why reasonable anti-war democrats should
accept Kerry’s vote.

John Kerry, had little choice in his IWR vote. A “no” vote would have been a
tactical coup to hold his anti-war base among Party activist. But, for reasons
of presidential politics, national policy, as well as concerns for precedent, a
“yes” vote on the Iraq War Resolution was the CORRECT VOTE for Kerry,
presidential candidate and Senior Senator on the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee.

Anti-war democrats should rally behind Kerry and accept his decision based on
his long record. Kerry is the guy who bucked the admirals of the navy and for 3 years camped on the bus, slept on the grass, marched the streets and confronted Senators, to stop an unjust war.
This is OUR John Kerry the “Tough Dove” – fiercely opposing the corrupt use of
American military force, but unflinching when he though force was absolutely
necessary. It is time for the Anti-War Dems to GET OVER the IWR vote, and get behind the ONLY democratic leader prepared to win the White House and lead the nation in these times.

Presidential Politics

Since Jimmy Carter lost to Reagan over the Iran Hostages, Dovishness has
spelled doom in national political campaigns. Clinton chose Gore over Kerry
as his 1992 running mate, reportedly because Kerry had opposed the first Gulf
War while Gore had joined the Republicans to support it. Clinton had to
compensate for his weak-on-defense image.

Curiously enough, Kerry opposed the Gulf war because he saw U.S. militarization
of the region as a potential long-term disaster. Kerry had led the
investigation of the Reagan/Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld duplicitous involvement in the
Iran-Iraq War during the 80's and saw that the Gulf conflict was not just
avoidable, but a war that should be avoided.

Al Gore, supported by a few conservative democrats such as Governor Dean,
voted for that War: a war that desecrated the Muslim Holy Lands, turned the
formerly pro-U.S. Islamic radicals into Anti-American Jihadist and led more
than a decade of death and tragedy for people in the region. But that vote for
war qualified him to be Vice President of the United States.

In 2000, once again, John Kerry was on the V.P. shortlist, but Gore picked the
hawkish Joe “the unimpeachable” Lieberman.

So, no doubt Senator John “twice burned” Kerry, now a presidential candidate,
Could have been reluctant to play the dove on the IWR in the face of a purported threat of
“mass destruction” from Saddam ‘the devil” Hussein. Kerry, the Senator, could
have voted NO to register his distrust of Bush regime intentions. Kerry, the
Presidential Candidate, had to give deference to the word of the sitting
President and consider Democratic vulnerabilities in ’04. He had to vote “YES.”

Policy

For more than a decade Kerry had broken with liberal non-interventionism and
argued for a proactive U.S. foreign policy to address world humanitarian
crises, WMD proliferation, and global terrorism. In his book, “The New War,”
(1997), Kerry pulls together insights from 3 terms on the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee and a decade as Chairman or Ranking Member of the Senate
Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics and International Operations. He argued
forcefully for a realignment of U.S. military and intelligence posture to
defend against new threats to U.S. global interests and national infrastructure
and called for urgent preemptive executive action, warning: "It will take
only one mega-terrorist event in any of the great cities of the world to change
the world in a single day."

On the campaign trail Kerry stated the policy position that led to his
difficult IWR vote:

"Americans deserve better than a false choice between force without
diplomacy and diplomacy without force. We need to take the third path in
foreign policy – not a hard unilateralism or a soft isolationism – but a bold,
progressive internationalism – backed by undoubted military might – that
commits America to lead in the cause of human liberty and prosperity.

If Democrats do not stand for making America safer, stronger, and more secure,
we won't win back the White House – and we won't deserve to."
-- John Kerry, December 16, 2003


Precedent

John Kerry led the anti-Vietnam war movement not as a pacifist, but as a war
hero who, after 6 years in combat, came to question the morality of U.S.
military tactics and the justice of American policy for the region. Since
Vietnam, Kerry has supported the principled use of force and has backed U.S.
military ventures, in Bosnia, Kosovo, Panama, Somalia and Haiti. In Bosnia,
Kerry supported covert action to oppose “ethnic cleansing.” In Kosovo, he went
further than the Clinton administration, arguing (on the side of NATO Supreme
Commander, Wesley Clark, incidentally) that ground troops should remain as an
option for stopping former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic's violent
crackdown on the Serbian province's ethnic Albanian majority.

Precedent regarding Saddam Hussein could not be clearer. While, Kerry opposed
the main resolution authorizing force in the Persian Gulf in 1991, he has since
criticized both former President Clinton and his successor, President Bush, for
missed opportunities to return inspectors to Iraq to end the risk of Iraqi WMD
proliferation.
In 1998 Kerry joined John McCain to argue for forceful and effective action, covert
or otherwise, to enforce U.N. inspections or remove the Saddam regime. In a
Feb. 23, 1998 press release on the Iraq dilemma Kerry stated:

“This is the first issue of proliferation in the post Cold War period. It is
imperative for us as a nation to stand our ground and for the Western world to
make it clear that we cannot allow by any nation to possess and use those kinds
of weapons.”

Given this precedent, a vote against Bush’s September, 2002, Iraq War
Resolution, in this post-9/11 national security environment, would have exposed
Kerry to a charge of enormous hypocrisy and partisan demagoguery.

In voting “yes” on the IWR Kerry said he had to trust the President of the
United States when he said that war would be “a last resort”. At the time of
the vote, in a substantial, thoughtful speech on the Senate floor, Kerry said
he would strongly opposed any unilateral movement to war and that he did not
believe that Saddam’s threat was yet imminent. He kept is word and led
opposition to unilateral action during the U.N. debates, Bush’s “rush to war,”
and the administration’s duplicitous and inept foreign policy.

Conclusion

John Kerry has been handed the lot of a fighter for most of his adult life.
With his vote for the IWR, Kerry risked his presumptive right to lead a campaign
for which he as prepared for a lifetime -- a campaign to overthrow the Bush
regime.

At the same time, John Kerry knows that that same vote is part of a necessary
armor against the republican onslaught, should he, against all odds, end up as
the standard-bearer for the Party in the ’04 election.

but his IWR vote, together with several statements he has made since, have convinced me that Kerry is as much a warmonger as the PNAC crowd.

BTW, I was opposed to sanctions and was was outraged by Clinton's indiscriminate bombing of civilian targets in Iraq, and in that tart Madeline Albright dismisal of 500,000 dead Iraqi children as inconsequential.

If Democrats do not stand for making America safer, stronger, and more secure, we won't win back the White House – and we won't deserve to."

-- John Kerry, December 16, 2003

Kerry's IWR vote has made America less safe, it has weakened the military to dangerous levels, and we are less secure than we were prior to 9/11. I guess Kerry does not deserve the nomination!

I seem to recall the identical thing being refuted before, yet it has appeared again without change.

This is the old model of discussion: thesis-antithesis-synthesis.

This is the new model of discussion: thesis-antithesis-THESIS,STUPID.

Cheers.

You're telling me that he voted FOR the war so it would look good for him when he ran for president?

That's the man we should have as president. I want a man that stands up for the right thing even if he is the only one standing. I don't want someone that does the "best" thing for their political career.

Kerry also voted for the Patriot Act, wire-tapping, and many other pro-republican bills

Those two paragraphs are the support for the troops in the field statements. He would never do anything to hurt the troops. It would be nice if people would take the WHOLE statements of candidates.

"I find myself genuinely angered, saddened and dismayed by the situation in which this nation finds itself tonight. As the world's sole superpower in an increasingly hostile and dangerous world, our government's obligation to protect the security of the United States and the law abiding nations of the world could not be more clear, particularly in the aftermath of September 11th.

Yet the Administration's handling of the run up to war with Iraq could not possibly have been more inept or self-defeating. President Bush has clumsily and arrogantly squandered the post 9/11 support and goodwill of the entire civilized world in a manner that will make the jobs ahead of us - both the military defeat and the rebuilding of Iraq - decidedly more expensive in every sense of that word.

The Administration's indifference to diplomacy and the manner in which it has treated friend and foe alike over the past several months have left this country with vastly reduced influence throughout the world, made impossible the assembly of a broad, multinational effort against Saddam Hussein, and dramatically increased the costs of fulfilling our legitimate security obligations at home and around the world."

That's the non-flip-flop flip-flop that kerry and others want us to buy. Kerry was all too willing to join the mob mentality and send americans half way around the world in an unnecessary war, when he of all people should have known better. This war never had a chance in hell of success. the evidence of sadaam's wmd was laughable, but of course those who voted for the war really never cared about the evidence, they just knew there are always more votes in supporting war than in opposing it. The present guerilla war and very likely civil war were entirely predictable and in fact *were* predicted, but kerry would not listen. not a single wmd has been found, secured, or destroyed. there was no alqaeda link. america now has far more enemies than it did on sept.10 and we are by no means safer.

Because everybody else in the whole entire world thought Saddam had WMD. That's all that matters here, that's what the world thought and the whole world wanted inspectors back in Iraq. Dennis, Howard, Wesley, everybody. That's what the IWR vote was about and that's all it was about. Everything Bush did in handling IRAQ and SADDAM was wrong. Everything. All of it. Not just the war, but the whole process from A to Z. He has said so consistently. He said so before the war. This is the way you better do it. These are the things that have to happen. And obviously, you let the inspections process be completed. He was 100% right on this vote. There would have been no inspectors in Iraq without it.

These other candidate have absolutely nothing to go up against Bush with if they weren't willing to DO SOMETHING about getting inspectors in Iraq. Except Wes Clark, because he's a General.

Read all of what he said there and then read what he said when he voted for the resolution.

This war never had a chance in hell of success. the evidence of sadaam's wmd was laughable, but of course those who voted for the war really never cared about the evidence, they just knew there are always more votes in supporting war than in opposing it.

Where you there when intelligence agency after intelligence agency presented bush's (what we later found out to be) doctored evidence to the Senators?

There was no support for the war at the time of the IWR. bush followed the polls and that's why he went to the UN instead of attacking ASAP. The polls at the time said that the American people would not support unilateral invasion, they would only support going through the UN. In fact, many republicans did not support unilateral action, including some of bush I's people. They also supported going back to the UN. Remember?

The present guerilla war and very likely civil war were entirely predictable and in fact *were* predicted, but kerry would not listen

He wouldn't listen? Read what he said at the time of the IWR vote some five months earlier. Kerry's always talked about doing the thing right. That doesn't mean getting permission from the UN, it means following the process the world created to address such situations from a to z.

Shoot Dick Cheney was "predicting" that when he was justifying why bush's daddy didn't finish Saddam off in Gulf I

not a single wmd has been found, secured, or destroyed. there was no alqaeda link. america now has far more enemies than it did on sept.10 and we are by no means safer.

Hindsight is 20/20 isn't it? I was as anti-war as the next person but on March 18, 2003 I was not 100% absolutely sure Saddam didn't have something (I never believed the al qaeda link). How 'bout you... 100% absolutely sure, be honest.

Read what Kerry said at the time of the IWR vote some five months earlier.

It sounds like Iraq was a priority for Kerry.

http://www.johnkerry.com/pressroom/speeches/spc_2002_1009.html

October 09, 2002

US Senate

With respect to Saddam Hussein and the threat he presents, we must ask ourselves a simple question: Why? Why is Saddam Hussein pursuing weapons that most nations have agreed to limit or give up? Why is Saddam Hussein guilty of breaking his own cease-fire agreement with the international community? Why is Saddam Hussein attempting to develop nuclear weapons when most nations don't even try and responsible nations that have them attempt to limit their potential for disaster? Why does Saddam Hussein threaten and provoke? Why does he develop missiles that exceed allowable limits? Why did Saddam Hussein lie and deceive the inspection team previously? Why did Saddam Hussein not account for all the weapons of mass destruction which UNSCOM (U.N. Special Commission) identified? Why is he seeking to develop unmanned airborne vehicles for delivery of biological agents? Does he do all those things and more because he wants to live by international standards of behavior? Because he respects international law? Because he is a nice guy the world should trust?

It would be naive to the point of grave danger not to believe that left to his own devices, Saddam Hussein will provoke, misjudge, or stumble into a future, more dangerous confrontation with the civilized world. He has as much as promised it.

<snip>

have been a top priority in his administration if he could have gotten a genuine coalition together?

http://www.johnkerry.com/pressroom/speeches/spc_2002_1009.html

<snip>

It is clear that in the four years since the UNSCOM inspectors were forced out, Saddam Hussein has continued his quest for weapons of mass destruction. According to the CIA's unclassified report released last Friday, Iraq has chemical and biological weapons as well as missiles with ranges in excess of the 150 kilometer restriction imposed by the United Nations in the ceasefire resolution. Although Iraq's chemical weapons capability was reduced during the UNSCOM inspections, Iraq has maintained its chemical weapons effort over the last four years. Evidence suggests that it has begun renewed production of chemical warfare agents, probably including mustard gas, sarin, cyclosarin and VX. Intelligence reports show that Iraq has invested more heavily in its biological weapons programs over the last four years, with the result that all key aspects of this program - R&D, production and weaponization - are active. Most elements of the program are larger and more advanced than they were before the Gulf War. Iraq has some lethal and incapacitating agents and is capable of quickly producing and weaponizing a variety of such agents, including anthrax, for delivery on a range of vehicles such as bombs, missiles, aerial sprayers and covert operatives which could bring them to the United States homeland. Since inspectors left, the Iraqi regime has energized its missile program - probably now consisting of a few dozen Scud-type missiles with ranges of 650 to 900 kilometers that could hit Israel, Saudi Arabia and other U.S. allies in the region. In addition, Iraq is developing unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), capable of delivering chemical and biological warfare agents, which could threaten Iraq's neighbors as well as American forces in the Persian Gulf.

<snip>

Both are speeches are pretty clear about where he stands if taken as a whole.

These were complete speeches some five months apart. Its not like he spoke the words you put forth and then went home, thought about it and came back to say the rest.

If Kerry was such a strong believer in the threat Iraq posed, would it have been a top priority in his administration if he could have gotten a genuine coalition together?

If Kerry was in bush's shoes at the time of the vote and the months after Iraq would not have been a top priority. Afghanistan, bin Laden, and Omar would've been.

Would Iraq have been a priority, certainly could have been. Kerry, and most Democrats wouldn't even have found themselves in the position that bush was in at the time. Most aren't cowboys and understand the role the international community can play... shoot, bush's father even understood this... and I'm no big fan of his.

Kerry has relationships with many of the players involved and if he didn't he would've forged them. He's not like bush who probably can't name all of our states, Kerry understands the importance of diplomacy. Read what he said at the time of the IWR vote, all of it. He stood on the Senate floor and warned bush about the consequences of not handling the situation the right way.

Kerry wouldn't have lied to the American people and the Congress about what we knew and didn't know, Kerry would've went to the UN and been upfront with them. He wouldn't have been undermining Blix or try to pressure him into saying things that weren't true. In short Kerry wouldn't have been the bully bush was. His VP wouldn't have had contracts signed, sealed and delivered for his company and Kerry, unlike bush, has the ability to think these things through and understand what his advisors are telling him. Your question plops us down in the middle of bush's world and Kerry would've never been in that world.

The reason why I'm not a republican like bush is because I have a differnet view of things of the US and the world. The reason why I support Kerry is not because I believe he will be absolutely correct in every single decision he makes but because I do not have any question about his ability to take great care in making a decision such as the one the US faced with Iraq. I don't think it is the way of the Democrats and I know it isn't the way of Kerry to just jump in to a situation because it "feels good", they'd/he'd tackle the situation with an intelligent approach. bush is unable to do that and relied too heavily on his advisors as a result.

The Republicans always use the "Even Clinton believed" when talking about Iraqi's WMD. The different between a Democrat like Kerry and bush is that Kerry would use the appropriate measured response similar to Clinton's approach. I don't agree with a lot Clinton did with Iraq but, he was intelligent enough to not invade and take-over Iraq. With Kerry, it wouldn't have just been some text someone slid in front of him to read if he said, military action was taken because it was the last available option.

What ever you think about the Iraq war Saddam was not a nice guy and dictators are not always the most trustworthy people on earth. Inspectors needed to be in Iraq if not to ensure Sadddam wasn't having a WMD party, then to clear Iraq and get the country off sanctions for the people. Kerry had to choose between liars and he chose to send the American liar to the UN to check up on hte Iraqi one.

Read the whole speech:

http://www.johnkerry.com/pressroom/speeches/spc_2002_1009.html

"My strong personal preference would have been for the Administration - like the Administration of George Bush, Sr. -- to have given diplomacy more time, more commitment, a real chance of success. In my estimation, giving the world thirty additional days for additional real multilateral coalition building - a real summit, not a five hour flyby with most of the world's powers excluded -- would have been prudent and no impediment to our military situation, an assessment with which our top military brass apparently agree. Unfortunately, that is an option that has been disregarded by President Bush. In the colloquial, we are where we are.

It will take years to repair the needless damage done by this Administration, damage to our international standing and moral leadership, to traditional and time-tested alliances, to our relations with the Arab world, ultimately to ourselves. Let's finish the process we began twelve years ago of disarming Saddam and ridding the world of this menace. Let's begin to rebuild our sense of national unity. Let's begin the work of building a stronger, safer world, of rebuilding alliances, and staying the course of long term involvement the Middle East in order to reclaim our rightful place of respect in the world order."

They want him to be responsible for George Bush's lies and unilateral decision to use force. Apparently, they cannot remember the political climate back 18 months ago. Kerry should have consulted the DU instead of the CIA/Pentagon intel to make his decision to use force only if UN inspections didn't work. Trouble is, they were working, Bush did not need to invade, and he cooked the intel.
'
That was the minority Party's fault.

Very odd, that we have so many posters that are so willing to smear the apparent choice of the majority of Democrats. But then again, I have my own opinion about their motivations.

Hey, I'll happily support any of the nominees, because, ultimately, I am a Democrat that wants George Bush out.

In spite of tonights smear-a-thon, I think our Party is smart enough to choose the man who will be our strongest choice. I gather from the desperation of the smears, that Kerry is the right choice.

and he would have known he was being lied to.

Kerry voted for IWR because he wanted this bloody war as much as Bush did. Now we have 511 dead Americans that should still be alive pursuing their dreams instead of being 6-feet under for no other reason than a Senator from Massachusetts lacked the courage to say "NO" to war.

Speculating about what Kerry wanted some five months before bush invaded doesn't change that. The dead and wounded Americans, Iraqis and others are not on Kery's head, they're on bush's. Bush made the determination to go to war, he lied to Congress and the American people, and he violated the conditions of the IWR... not Kerry.

I was anti-war and reading the press from the UK and everwhere else and I did not know absolutely 100% Saddam was WMD free in October 2002. I didn't believe Saddam had much but I thought he would've been crazy to have gotten rid of everything considering the neighborhood he lived in.

In spite of tonights smear-a-thon, I think our Party is smart enough to choose the man who will be our strongest choice.

Don't mean go religious but... from your lips to God's ears

there would be no invasion of Iraq. Inspections would have been carried out thoroughly.

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They both went into it for the same reason: To gain politcal popularity from an angry and frightened American people. The same is true for Edwards and Gephardt.

None of them will get my vote.

The Kerry apologists would like this issue to go away. But, it's not going to. We won't let it.

and to allow speculation to cloud your view of the facts :-) This is America after all.

That was a long, long time ago and under completely different circumstances. He was not an entrenched politician then-- he was young, idealistic and had a very different agenda.

I think he has now gotten corrupted enough to be electable-- which means he will go along with the schemes of the shadowy powers that really control everything.

Having said all that, he would still be infinitely preferable to Bush.