![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/Iraq1.png?resize=696%2C454&ssl=1\")
Part II of our series on Joe Biden and the political skeletons in his closet<\/strong><\/h2>\nJoe Biden presents himself as an empathetic guy who is willing to go the extra mile to help people overcome their personal tragedies.<\/p>\n
However, Biden has throughout his career endorsed policies that caused countless personal tragedies for millions of people.<\/p>\n
The best example is his support for the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq.<\/p>\n
It led to the deaths and wounding of thousands of U.S. soldiers, killing of an estimated one million Iraqis, and destabilization of a wide swath of the Middle East.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/Iraq2.png?resize=696%2C464&ssl=1\")
President George W. Bush signing a resolution authorizing the use of force against Iraq at the White House on October 16, 2002. Joseph R. Biden, Jr., then a senator, is seen at right. [Source:\u00a0nytimes.com<\/a>]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nIn 2002, Biden was riding high, as Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, in his 30th<\/sup>\u00a0year in the Senate.<\/p>\nHaving supported Ronald Reagan\u2019s invasion of Grenada in 1983 and bombing of Libya in 1986, Biden went on to embrace George H.W. Bush\u2019s invasion of Panama in 1991, and Bill Clinton\u2019s bombing of Kosovo in 1999.[1]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\nWhen Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein (1979-2003) invaded Kuwait in 1991, Biden did vote against invading Iraq, believing that Bush had not made the case for war and that Hussein could be contained through an international embargo.<\/p>\n
However, once Bush went to war, Biden declared that he was giving Bush his total support, and praised Bush for displaying real \u201cleadership,\u201d never mentioning the 110,000 civilians who died.[2]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\nFollowing the 9\/11 attacks, Biden supported the invasion of Afghanistan and tried to raise funds for a Marshall Plan-type program to fund the country\u2019s reconstruction.<\/p>\n
Biden was so well connected to President George W. Bush in this period that he had a secure phone line to the White House set up in his home and met with Bush privately to plot out a public relations message for the Afghan War.[3]<\/strong><\/sup><\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\nThe\u00a0New Republic<\/em>\u00a0termed Biden\u00a0\u201cthe Democratic Party\u2019s de facto spokesman on the war against terrorism.\u201d\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/Iraq3.png?resize=696%2C348&ssl=1\")
With Bush\u2019s approval rating reaching 90 percent after 9\/11, Biden said \u201ccount me in the 90 percent.\u201d There is \u201ctotal cohesion between Democrats and Republicans in the challenges ahead. There is no daylight between us.\u201d [Source:\u00a0today.com]<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\nIn a\u00a0CSPAN talk before the Council on Foreign Relations in October 2001<\/a>, Biden framed the War on Terror as an apocalyptic struggle between civilization and a trans-national terrorist entity who would bring violent disorder and chaos to the world.<\/p>\nBiden called for a strong U.S. commitment to the Middle East to defeat al-Qaeda and help empower \u201cmoderate Muslims,\u201d while pushing for better efforts at public diplomacy.<\/p>\n
When asked about Iraq, Biden said he was not in favor of immediate invasion, but rather for imposing a \u201csmarter sanctions\u201d policy and generating consensus for a multilateral coalition that would support the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.<\/p>\n
Several months later, Biden told a crowd of 400 Delaware National Guard officers that,\u00a0\u201cif Saddam Hussein is still there five years from now, we are in big trouble<\/a>\u00a0\u2026 It would be unrealistic, if not downright foolish, to believe we can claim victory in the war on terrorism if Saddam is still in power.\u201d<\/p>\n\u201cTake This Son of a Bitch Down\u201d<\/strong><\/h2>\nBiden\u2019s support for regime change in Iraq went back to the late 1990s.<\/p>\n
After the first Persian Gulf War, Saddam had agreed to destroy Iraq\u2019s chemical weapons stockpile and to allow weapons inspectors into the country.<\/p>\n
Senator Biden supported President Clinton\u2019s decision to remove the weapons inspectors in 1998 in order to launch a four-day bombing campaign, despite\u00a0<\/a>being warned<\/a>\u00a0<\/a>that it would likely end Saddam\u2019s cooperation. Subsequently, Biden\u00a0<\/a>insisted<\/a>\u00a0that \u201cSaddam kicked the [inspectors] out.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/Iraq4.png?resize=696%2C393&ssl=1\")
Biden presides over hearings where he advocated for regime change in Iraq in 1998. [Source:\u00a0theintercept.com<\/a>]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nScott Ritter, the chief UN weapons inspector, resigned in protest and accused the international community of not giving him and his colleagues the support they needed to carry out their job in Iraq.<\/p>\n
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/Iraq5a.png?resize=260%2C306&ssl=1\")
Scott Ritter, chief UN weapons inspector, resigned in protest and accused the international community of not giving him and his colleagues the support they needed to carry out their job in Iraq. [Source:\u00a0academia.info<\/a>]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\nRitter was called to testify before the Senate in September 1998 where Biden, who was then the highest-ranking Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, grilled him.<\/p>\n
Biden told Ritter\u2014whom he referred to condescendingly as \u201cold Scotty Boy\u201d\u2014that no matter how thorough the inspections,\u00a0the only way to eliminate the threat was to remove Saddam Hussein<\/a>.<\/p>\n\u201cThe primary policy is to keep sanctions in place to deny Saddam the billions of dollars that would allow him to really crank up his program, which neither you nor I believe he\u2019s ever going to abandon as long as he\u2019s in place,\u201d Biden said, characterizing the then Clinton administration\u2019s policy.<\/p>\n
Biden continued:<\/p>\n\nYou and I believe, and many of us believe here, as long as Saddam is at the helm, there is no reasonable prospect you or any other inspector is ever going to be able to guarantee that we have rooted out, root and branch, the entirety of Saddam\u2019s program relative to weapons of mass destruction. You and I both know, and all of us here really know, and it\u2019s a thing we have to face, that the only way, the only way we\u2019re going to get rid of Saddam Hussein is we\u2019re going to end up having to start it alone\u2014start it alone\u2014and it\u2019s going to require guys like you in uniform to be back on foot in the desert taking this son of a bitch down. You know it and I know it.[4]<\/strong><\/sup><\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\nMobilizing Support for War<\/strong><\/h2>\nBiden followed up on these statements at the end of July 2002 by chairing\u00a0hearings in the Senate<\/a>\u00a0that were designed to mobilize congressional support for Operation Iraqi Freedom, whose goal was the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.<\/p>\nBiden stated that the purpose of the hearings was to initiate a \u201cnational dialogue\u201d on Iraq.<\/p>\n
However, the witnesses were skewed to represent alarmist views about Saddam and his alleged possession of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and to support a preemptive strike. The three who testified on the subject of al-Qaeda, falsely claimed it received direct support from Iraq.<\/p>\n
Former UN Assistant Secretary-General Hans Von Sponeck complained about the \u201cdeliberate distortions and misrepresentations\u201d that \u201cmake it look to the average person in the U.S. as if Iraq is a threat to their security.\u201d[5]<\/strong><\/sup><\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\nBiden set the tone in his opening remarks when he emphasized that<\/p>\n\nwe\u00a0cannot be complacent<\/a>\u00a0about those who espouse hatred for us. We must confront clear danger with a new sense of urgency and resolve. Saddam Hussein\u2019s pursuit of Weapons of Mass Destruction, in my view, is one of those clear dangers \u2026 These weapons must be dislodged or Saddam Hussein must be dislodged from power.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\nThese comments echoed a\u00a0New York Times op-ed<\/a>\u00a0Biden published the first day of the hearings with Richard Lugar (R-IN), which suggested that continued containment of Saddam raised the \u201crisk that Mr. Hussein will play cat-and-mouse with inspectors while building more weapons\u201d and that \u201cif we wait for the danger to become clear and present, it may be too late.\u201d<\/p>\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/Iraq6.png?resize=306%2C385&ssl=1\")
Biden at the hearings. [Source:\u00a0thedailybeast.com<\/a>]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\nThe first witness at the hearings was\u00a0Richard Butler, a diplomat-in-residence at the Council on Foreign Relations<\/a>\u00a0and former executive chairman of the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM), an inspection regime designed to ensure Iraqi compliance with international protocols on WMD after the first Persian Gulf War.<\/p>\nButler testified that Saddam\u2019s claims that he had no WMDs was false. Rather, Iraq had the components that were needed to manufacture nuclear weapons and a\u00a0weaponized biological warfare program<\/a>\u00a0with capability of loading anthrax onto missile warheads, and had terminated UNSCOM\u2019s work in order to hide the truth.<\/p>\nIn Butler\u2019s view, Saddam was a war criminal who should be on trial at The Hague alongside Serb leader Slobodan Milo\u0161evi\u0107.<\/p>\n
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/Iraq7.png?resize=445%2C267&ssl=1\")
Richard Butler. [Source:\u00a0bbc.co.uk<\/a>]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\nThe next witness, Khidir Hamza, was an Iraqi nuclear scientist who had defected from Saddam\u2019s regime and told his story in the book,\u00a0Saddam\u2019s Bombmaker: The Daring Escape of the Man Who Built Iraq\u2019s Secret Weapon<\/a>, written with Jeff Stein.<\/p>\nClaiming that Iraqis would welcome an American invasion \u201cwith open arms,\u201d Hamza warned that Saddam Hussein had \u201cturned Iraqi science and engineering enterprises into a \u201cgiant weapons making body.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said that Iraq possessed more than ten tons of\u00a0uranium<\/a>, and one ton of slightly\u00a0enriched uranium<\/a>, which he claimed was enough to allow them to build three nuclear weapons by 2005.\u00a0Saddam was also well into chemical warfare production and developing biological warfare capabilities.<\/p>\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/Iraq8.png?resize=310%2C405&ssl=1\")
Khidir Hamza [Source:\u00a0wikipedia.org<\/a>]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\nAccording to Hamza, Saddam was a vicious tyrant who had hunted down defectors in exile like his brother-in law Hussein Kamel, who was killed in 1996.<\/p>\n
Saddam was further linked to Islamic fundamentalism, training foreign jihadist fighters at an Iraqi intelligence camp twenty miles south of Baghdad, including in tactics of hijacking which was confirmed allegedly by satellite photos.<\/p>\n
The Iraqi ambassador to Turkey, Farouk Hijazi, had traveled to Afghanistan and met with Osama bin Laden in 1998.<\/p>\n
Most, if not all of Hamza\u2019s information on Iraq\u2019s nuclear weapons program was untrue, and UNSCOM inspectors insist that Hamza was never actually part of Iraq\u2019s nuclear program.<\/p>\n
David Albright, who wrote a series of articles on Iraq\u2019s nuclear program, stated that\u00a0Hamza\u2019s unreliability<\/a>\u00a0stemmed from his support for U.S. military action.\u00a0He told me he wanted to get a gun himself and go back and fight with his sons.<\/a><\/p>\nUN weapons inspector\u00a0Scott Ritter<\/a>\u00a0heavily criticized the use of Hamza\u2019s testimony as a rationale for invading Iraq<\/a>. He said:<\/p>\n\nWe seized the entire records of the Iraqi nuclear program, especially the administrative records. We got a name of everybody, where they worked, what they did, and the top of the list, Saddam\u2019s \u2018Bombmaker\u2019 was a man named\u00a0Jafar Dhia Jafar<\/a>, not Khidir Hamza, and if you go down the list of the senior administrative personnel you will not find Hamza\u2019s name in there. In fact, we didn\u2019t find his name at all. Because in 1990, he didn\u2019t work for the Iraqi Nuclear Program. He had no knowledge of it because he worked as a kickback specialist for\u00a0Hussein Kamel<\/a>\u00a0in the Presidential Palace.\u00a0He goes into northern Iraq and meets up with\u00a0Ahmed Chalabi<\/a>.<\/p>\nHe walks in and says, \u201cI\u2019m Saddam\u2019s \u2018Bombmaker.\u2019\u201d So they call the CIA and they say, \u201cwe know who you are, you\u2019re not Saddam\u2019s \u2018Bombmaker,\u2019 go sell your story to someone else.\u201d And he was released, he was rejected by all intelligence services at the time, he\u2019s a fraud. And here we are, someone who the\u00a0CIA<\/a>\u00a0knows is a fraud, the U.S. Government knows is a\u00a0fraud,<\/a>\u00a0is allowed to sit in front of the\u00a0United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations<\/a>\u00a0and give testimony as an expert witness.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\nThese comments provide a stinging rebuke of Biden and his deceit of the American people.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Witness after witness that followed Hamza advanced a similar underlying message to him.<\/p>\n
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/Iraq9.png?resize=297%2C297&ssl=1\")
Charles Duelfer [Source:\u00a0amazon.com]<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\nCharles Duelfer, the former executive chairman of UNSCOM, stated from the outset that he favored regime change in Iraq<\/a>, and highlighted, as a source of comparison, the 1919 Versailles Treaty\u2019s failure to prevent Hitler from rearming Germany despite an inspections regime that had been set up.<\/p>\nDuelfer asked subsequently \u201cwhether we were prepared to give back the Saddam regime control over the oil revenues.\u201d He stressed that \u201cour highest priority should be convincing Iraqis in Iraq that they will be\u00a0better off when Saddam was gone, and that he will be gone<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/Iraq10.png?resize=260%2C309&ssl=1\")
Lt. Gen. Thomas McInerney [Source:\u00a0nara.getarhicve.net]<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\nLieutenant General Thomas G. McInerney, the former Assistant Vice Chief of the Air Force, detailed before the committee how regime change could be accomplished through \u201cblitz warfare\u201d\u2013a \u201c24-hour, 7 day a week campaign,\u201d using \u201cprecision weapons,\u201d and \u201csupported by fast mobbing ground forces and heavy, light, airborne amphibious, special covert operations working with [Iraqi] opposition forces.\u201d<\/p>\n
One of the hearings\u2019 main academic experts, Fouad Ajami, director of Middle East Studies at Johns Hopkins University\u2019s School of Advanced International Studies, emphasized an alleged linkage between Iraq and 9\/11 and said that Muslim hatred of America resulted from jealousy of American success and talent\u2013among the untalented\u2013and not historical factors or opposition to U.S. foreign policies.<\/p>\n
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/Iraq11.png?resize=239%2C303&ssl=1\")
Fouad Ajami, an Arab Uncle Tom. [Source:\u00a0wikipedia.org<\/a>]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\nAjami went on to suggest that Americans would be greeted in Baghdad and Basra with \u201ckites and boom boxes\u201d<\/a>\u2014as they allegedly had been in Kabul.<\/p>\nResidents of these cities were \u201ceager for deliverance from the tyranny and the great big prison of Saddam Hussein<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\nRend al-Rahim Francke,\u00a0a cousin and close associate of Ahmed Chalabi<\/a>\u2014a con man who helped lobby for the Iraq War\u2014echoed Ajami in claiming that American troops would be greeted as liberators and said that there would be no civil war after the U.S. invaded.<\/p>\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/Iraq12.png?resize=255%2C294&ssl=1\")
Rend al-Rahim Francke [Source:\u00a0wikipedia.org<\/a>]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\nA member of the\u00a0Committee for the Liberation of Iraq<\/a>, which was set up to lobby Congress to support an invasion of Iraq, she proposed a Bonn meeting for Iraq modeled on Afghanistan to help select the post-Saddam leadership.<\/p>\nThe Bonn conference was highly unpopular among Afghans, however, because foreigners selected their leaders for them, and it went against the idea of democracy.<\/p>\n
After Saddam was overthrown, Francke was appointed Iraqi ambassador to the U.S., and in 2004 was a\u00a0guest of Laura Bush<\/a>\u00a0in the First Lady\u2019s box at George W. Bush\u2019s State of the Union address. Subsequently, she established the Iraqi-American Freedom Alliance, whose aim was to show the positive consequences of the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq.<\/p>\nThe few skeptics who testified at the hearing mainly raised questions about tactics, economic cost and military feasibility of regime change and how long it might take to stabilize the country, but not about the potential cost for Iraqis or hidden underlying motives behind U.S. policy.[6]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\nDr. Phebe Marr, an Iraq expert and former professor at the National Defense University, was characteristic in considering the goal of regime change to be\u00a0\u201cambitious.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/Iraq13.png?resize=696%2C394&ssl=1\")
Dr. Phebe Marr, an Iraq expert, saw regime change programs in Iraq as ambitious and advocated for the use of ground troops and adequate resources so it could be undertaken effectively. [Source:\u00a0usatoday.com<\/a>]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nShe stated:<\/p>\n\nIf the United States is going to take the responsibility for removing the current leadership, it should assume that it cannot get the results it wants \u2018on the cheap.\u2019 It must be prepared to put some troops on the ground, provide advisors to help create new institutions, and, above all, spend time and effort in the future to see the project through to a satisfactory end. If the United States is not willing to do so, it had best rethink the project.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n
In short, the United States should try to be good colonials and initiate a sustained long-term military and political commitment or none at all\u2014hardly an anti-war position.<\/p>\n
In the afternoon session of the last day, former\u00a0Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger<\/a>\u00a0(1981-1987), branded Saddam Hussein as a \u201cpurveyor of evil\u201d and \u201cimplacable\u201d and \u201cpermanent foe of the United States,\u201d and former National Security Adviser\u00a0Sandy Berger<\/a>\u00a0(1993-1996), called Saddam a \u201cmenace to his own people and the stability of the region.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/iraq14a.png?resize=696%2C453&ssl=1\")
Sandy Berger testifies at hearings with Caspar Weinberger in the background. [Source:\u00a0gettyimages.com<\/a>]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nEmphasizing Saddam\u2019s link to terrorist groups such as the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and Hamas, and al-Qaeda\u2019s growing presence in Iraq, Weinberger was most strident in his support for preemptive war.<\/p>\n
The United States, he said, had successfully \u201cchanged several regimes after World War II\u201d and \u201cin each case, the result was a \u201cvast and major improvement.\u201d<\/p>\n
Exclusion of Voices for Peace<\/strong><\/h2>\nWhile Senator Russell Feingold (D-WI) praised Biden for\u00a0\u201cproducing a very fine moment in the history of the [Senate Foreign Relations] Committee,\u201d<\/a>\u00a0anti-war Senators Lincoln Chafee (R-RI) and Paul Wellstone (D-MN) raised concern about the lack of balance.<\/p>\nChafee told Biden that the panel he had set up \u201cgave the perspective that the threat [from Saddam and his alleged WMDs] was very real, very immediate\u201d but that it would have been\u00a0\u201cgood to have a different perspective [offered].\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n- \n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/Iraq15.png?resize=346%2C450&ssl=1\")
Lincoln Chafee [Source:\u00a0congress.gov<\/a>]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/li>\n- \n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/Iraq16.png?resize=460%2C450&ssl=1\")
Paul Wellstone [Source:\u00a0cyndi-lenz.com<\/a>]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nWellstone was able to get inserted into the record three principled anti-war statements.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
The first was written by Phyllis Bennis of the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS). She provided a warning from Nelson Mandela that \u201cattacking Iraq would be a disaster,\u201d and predicted that it would \u201ckill thousands of civilians,\u201d risk the lives of U.S. military personnel, lead to a \u201clong and bloody occupation\u201d and \u201ccost billions of dollars urgently needed at home.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/Iraq17.png?resize=224%2C281&ssl=1\")
Phyllis Bennis [Source:\u00a0ips-dc.org<\/a>]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\nBennis noted that there were absolutely no verifiable reports regarding Iraq\u2019s WMD program or evidence of Iraqi involvement in the 9\/11 terrorist attacks\u2014Iraq was in fact antagonistic to bin Laden and vice versa\u2014and she said that preemptive strikes were illegal under international law.<\/p>\n
The second anti-war statement came from\u00a0J. Daryl Byler of the Mennonite Central Committee\u2019s Washington Office<\/a>, who advocated for a regional approach to Iraq\u2019s disarmament and establishment of an international tribunal as a right way to investigate allegations of crimes against humanity by Saddam Hussein.<\/p>\nByler noted that, for more than 20 years, ordinary Iraqis had suffered from the aftermath of the Iran-Iraq and Gulf Wars and impact of UN sanctions intended to contain and control the Iraqi government, and that a U.S. invasion would make a bad situation worse and result in the deaths of thousands of children and civilians.<\/p>\n
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/Iraq18.png?resize=341%2C263&ssl=1\")
J. Daryl Byler [Source:\u00a0emu.edu<\/a>]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\nByler predicted that the war would further destabilize the Middle East and provide \u201cyet another example that the world\u2019s superpower is unilaterally able to impose its will and wish on less powerful countries.\u201d An Iraqi evangelical church leader told his delegation that \u201cwe hope that someday your country will stop doing everything with force.\u201d<\/p>\n
The third anti-war statement was written by Dr. Peter Pellet, emeritus professor of nutrition at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and Dr. Colin Rowat, a professor of economics at the University of Manchester.<\/p>\n
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/Iraq19.png?resize=238%2C285&ssl=1\")
Dr. Peter L. Pellet [Source:\u00a0umass.edu]<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\nThey emphasized the humanitarian crisis resulting from the U.S. bombing of the electrical grid during the first Persian Gulf War and imposition of economic sanctions and believed that the civilian costs of new military action would be greater than in 1990.<\/p>\n
The three principled anti-war statements contrasted markedly with the rest of the hearings and were prescient in their analysis and warnings.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
They did not command the same attention, however, as the regular panelists since they were not issued in-person.[7]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\nTheir inclusion was a masterful trick designed to sustain the illusion that all sides were represented in the \u201cnational dialogue.\u201d Really, however, it was a staged political event designed to lay the groundwork for war.<\/p>\n
Afterwards, President Bush thanked Biden for holding the hearings, and Biden went on all the major television networks to argue for war, citing the lopsided testimony he had arranged. \u201cWe have no choice but to eliminate the threat,\u201d he told\u00a0Meet the Press<\/em>.[8]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/Iraq20.png?resize=696%2C456&ssl=1\")
Scott Ritter giving a lecture at the Harvard Kennedy school pointing to the lack of evidence for WMDs. He was a key figure excluded from the hearing. [Source:\u00a0news.harvard.edu<\/a>]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nTwisting the Truth<\/strong><\/h2>\nIn his memoir,\u00a0Promises to Keep<\/em>\u2014published in 2007 when he was running to be the Democratic Party\u2019s presidential nominee\u2014Biden claimed that the two days of expert testimony at the Senate hearings were \u201ca good start to educating the country about the monumental difficulties of opening up another military front.\u201d<\/p>\nBiden wrote that \u201cnot wanting the president to get locked into going to war,\u201d his intention was to \u201cmake public the disincentives to going to war in Iraq.\u201d[9]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/Iraq21.png?resize=287%2C393&ssl=1\")
[Source:\u00a0penguinrandomhouse.com<\/a>]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\nPrior to the hearings, Biden wrote that President Bush personally assured him that \u201cthere was no plan to take down Iraq\u201d and that he was confident at the time that \u201cSecretary of State Colin Powell was trying to dissuade the president from an invasion.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ten days later, however, Biden read in the\u00a0Washington Post<\/em>\u00a0that Bush had signed an intelligence order directing the CIA to undertake a comprehensive covert program to topple Saddam Hussein, including lethal authority to capture the Iraqi president.\u201d Biden wrote that he didn\u2019t ask the administration to send any witnesses as such because \u201cI didn\u2019t want to force their hand.\u201d[10]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\nBiden leaves the impression that he was opposed to the war and trying to stop it and did not want to give the Bush administration a voice, stating that the consensus of the experts was that Saddam \u201cwas five to ten years away from developing a nuclear weapon\u201d and \u201cnot an imminent threat.\u201d<\/p>\n
However, in his introductory remarks and accompanying\u00a0New York Times<\/em>\u00a0op-ed, Biden had stated that Saddam was a major threat who had to be confronted, and the experts at the hearings testified that Saddam\u00a0was\u00a0<\/em>a grave threat, had WMD, was linked to al-Qaeda, and would have a nuclear weapon within three years; not five to ten.<\/p>\nBiden directly contradicted what he wrote in in his memoir when he told Meet the Press host Tim Russert in April 2007 that\u00a0\u201ceveryone in the world thought he [Saddam] had them [WMDs]. The weapons inspectors said he had them.\u201d<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\nIn an attempt to show the hearings promoted a cautionary message, Biden referenced the testimony of military expert Anthony Cordesman, who said that war was not a game and quoted from the Roman philosopher Pliny the Elder: \u201cSmall boys throw stones at frogs in jest. But, the frogs do not die in jest. The frogs die in earnest.\u201d[11]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/Iraq22.png?resize=600%2C412&ssl=1\")
Anthony Cordesman [Source:\u00a0upi.com<\/a>]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nCordesman, however, promoted an alarmist narrative about Saddam in his testimony,\u00a0warning about his possession of anthrax weapons with nuclear lethalities, and capacity for carrying out chemical and biological weapon attacks directed against U.S. bases and troops in the Persian Gulf<\/a>. Cordesman further insinuated the need for a full-scale ground invasion since air strikes would not be enough.[12]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\nBiden Ignores CIA Director\u2019s Assessment<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/Iraq23.png?resize=270%2C342&ssl=1\")
George Tenet [Source:\u00a0wikipedia.org<\/a>]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\nOne month and a half after the hearings, Biden gained access to information that disproved the WMD claims, though he never acted upon it.<\/p>\n
In a classified hearing on September 24, 2002, at the urging of a staff member, Biden asked then-CIA Director George Tenet what evidence of WMDs the U.S. had \u201ctechnically collected.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNone, Senator,\u201d Tenet said,<\/a>\u00a0according to an account in the book\u00a0Hubris<\/em>, by Michael Isikoff and David Corn. Biden, wondering if there was some highly classified evidence, asked Tenet, \u201cGeorge, do you want me to clear the staff out of the room?\u201d Tenet told him no.\u00a0\u201cThere\u2019s no reason to, Senator.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\nLater in that same hearing, Biden heard from two government witnesses who rejected the \u201caluminum tubes<\/a>\u201d claim that had been circulating, and would later become a centerpiece of Secretary of State Colin Powell\u2019s presentation to the United Nations promoting preemptive war.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/powell.jpg?resize=370%2C177&ssl=1\")
General Colin Powell has called his 2003 speech to the United Nations, laying out the Bush administration\u2019s rationale for war in Iraq, a\u00a0\u201cblot\u201d<\/a>\u00a0on his record. The speech set out to detail Iraq\u2019s weapons program, but as the intelligence confirmed, that program was nonexistent. The former Secretary of State acknowledged that his report to the Security Council was only intended to give credit to the accusations from the administration and that the intelligence services had not \u201cworked properly.\u201d [Source:\u00a0volatirenet.org<\/a>]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nBiden nevertheless would go on to vote in favor of the war on Iraq, even though he knew that the stated reasons\u2014that Saddam had WMD\u2014was unproven or false, and lied about this later.<\/p>\n
Biden Votes for War<\/strong><\/h2>\nAfter hearing from Tenet, Biden, with Richard Lugar and Chuck Hagel (R-NE), proposed an\u00a0alternative to George W. Bush\u2019s war resolution<\/a>\u00a0that would only allow Bush to attack Iraq for the purpose of destroying WMD\u00a0and<\/em>\u00a0only after seeking UN approval.<\/p>\nIf the UN turned Bush down, he would have to come back to Congress and prove Saddam posed a WMD threat so \u201cgrave\u201d that only military action could eliminate it.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/Iraq24.png?resize=696%2C460&ssl=1\")
Biden and Dick Lugar [Source:\u00a0rollcall.com<\/a>]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nWhen Biden\u2019s plan was derailed, however, through the work of Dick Gephardt (D-MI), the Democratic Party leader in the House, Biden backed Bush\u2019s war resolution.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/covertactionmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/Iraq25.png?resize=630%2C360&ssl=1\")
George W. Bush and Dick Gephardt, bipartisanship at work! [Source:\u00a0news.bbc.co.uk<\/a>]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nOn October 10, 2002, on the eve of the vote, Biden repeated before the Senate his claims about Saddam\u2019s threat and pursuit of nuclear weapons and framed military intervention as a \u201cmarch to peace and security,\u201d specifying that the \u201cthreat need not be imminent for us to take action.\u201d<\/p>\n
The next day, Biden was one of 77 Senators who\u00a0voted to authorize military force in Iraq<\/a>, joining fellow Democrats Hillary Clinton, Chuck Schumer, Harry Reid, John Kerry, and Dianne Feinstein.<\/p>\nIn early November, Biden introduced the Iraqi Scientists Liberation Act before the Senate, which granted\u00a0permanent residency status to 500 Iraqi scientists<\/a>\u00a0if they supplied information on weapons of mass destruction.<\/p>\n
In 2002, Biden was riding high, as Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, in his 30th<\/sup>\u00a0year in the Senate.<\/p>\n Having supported Ronald Reagan\u2019s invasion of Grenada in 1983 and bombing of Libya in 1986, Biden went on to embrace George H.W. Bush\u2019s invasion of Panama in 1991, and Bill Clinton\u2019s bombing of Kosovo in 1999.[1]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n When Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein (1979-2003) invaded Kuwait in 1991, Biden did vote against invading Iraq, believing that Bush had not made the case for war and that Hussein could be contained through an international embargo.<\/p>\n However, once Bush went to war, Biden declared that he was giving Bush his total support, and praised Bush for displaying real \u201cleadership,\u201d never mentioning the 110,000 civilians who died.[2]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n Following the 9\/11 attacks, Biden supported the invasion of Afghanistan and tried to raise funds for a Marshall Plan-type program to fund the country\u2019s reconstruction.<\/p>\n Biden was so well connected to President George W. Bush in this period that he had a secure phone line to the White House set up in his home and met with Bush privately to plot out a public relations message for the Afghan War.[3]<\/strong><\/sup><\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n The\u00a0New Republic<\/em>\u00a0termed Biden\u00a0\u201cthe Democratic Party\u2019s de facto spokesman on the war against terrorism.\u201d\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n In a\u00a0CSPAN talk before the Council on Foreign Relations in October 2001<\/a>, Biden framed the War on Terror as an apocalyptic struggle between civilization and a trans-national terrorist entity who would bring violent disorder and chaos to the world.<\/p>\n Biden called for a strong U.S. commitment to the Middle East to defeat al-Qaeda and help empower \u201cmoderate Muslims,\u201d while pushing for better efforts at public diplomacy.<\/p>\n When asked about Iraq, Biden said he was not in favor of immediate invasion, but rather for imposing a \u201csmarter sanctions\u201d policy and generating consensus for a multilateral coalition that would support the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.<\/p>\n Several months later, Biden told a crowd of 400 Delaware National Guard officers that,\u00a0\u201cif Saddam Hussein is still there five years from now, we are in big trouble<\/a>\u00a0\u2026 It would be unrealistic, if not downright foolish, to believe we can claim victory in the war on terrorism if Saddam is still in power.\u201d<\/p>\n Biden\u2019s support for regime change in Iraq went back to the late 1990s.<\/p>\n After the first Persian Gulf War, Saddam had agreed to destroy Iraq\u2019s chemical weapons stockpile and to allow weapons inspectors into the country.<\/p>\n Senator Biden supported President Clinton\u2019s decision to remove the weapons inspectors in 1998 in order to launch a four-day bombing campaign, despite\u00a0<\/a>being warned<\/a>\u00a0<\/a>that it would likely end Saddam\u2019s cooperation. Subsequently, Biden\u00a0<\/a>insisted<\/a>\u00a0that \u201cSaddam kicked the [inspectors] out.\u201d<\/p>\n Scott Ritter, the chief UN weapons inspector, resigned in protest and accused the international community of not giving him and his colleagues the support they needed to carry out their job in Iraq.<\/p>\n Ritter was called to testify before the Senate in September 1998 where Biden, who was then the highest-ranking Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, grilled him.<\/p>\n Biden told Ritter\u2014whom he referred to condescendingly as \u201cold Scotty Boy\u201d\u2014that no matter how thorough the inspections,\u00a0the only way to eliminate the threat was to remove Saddam Hussein<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cThe primary policy is to keep sanctions in place to deny Saddam the billions of dollars that would allow him to really crank up his program, which neither you nor I believe he\u2019s ever going to abandon as long as he\u2019s in place,\u201d Biden said, characterizing the then Clinton administration\u2019s policy.<\/p>\n Biden continued:<\/p>\n You and I believe, and many of us believe here, as long as Saddam is at the helm, there is no reasonable prospect you or any other inspector is ever going to be able to guarantee that we have rooted out, root and branch, the entirety of Saddam\u2019s program relative to weapons of mass destruction. You and I both know, and all of us here really know, and it\u2019s a thing we have to face, that the only way, the only way we\u2019re going to get rid of Saddam Hussein is we\u2019re going to end up having to start it alone\u2014start it alone\u2014and it\u2019s going to require guys like you in uniform to be back on foot in the desert taking this son of a bitch down. You know it and I know it.[4]<\/strong><\/sup><\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n Biden followed up on these statements at the end of July 2002 by chairing\u00a0hearings in the Senate<\/a>\u00a0that were designed to mobilize congressional support for Operation Iraqi Freedom, whose goal was the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.<\/p>\n Biden stated that the purpose of the hearings was to initiate a \u201cnational dialogue\u201d on Iraq.<\/p>\n However, the witnesses were skewed to represent alarmist views about Saddam and his alleged possession of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and to support a preemptive strike. The three who testified on the subject of al-Qaeda, falsely claimed it received direct support from Iraq.<\/p>\n Former UN Assistant Secretary-General Hans Von Sponeck complained about the \u201cdeliberate distortions and misrepresentations\u201d that \u201cmake it look to the average person in the U.S. as if Iraq is a threat to their security.\u201d[5]<\/strong><\/sup><\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Biden set the tone in his opening remarks when he emphasized that<\/p>\n we\u00a0cannot be complacent<\/a>\u00a0about those who espouse hatred for us. We must confront clear danger with a new sense of urgency and resolve. Saddam Hussein\u2019s pursuit of Weapons of Mass Destruction, in my view, is one of those clear dangers \u2026 These weapons must be dislodged or Saddam Hussein must be dislodged from power.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n These comments echoed a\u00a0New York Times op-ed<\/a>\u00a0Biden published the first day of the hearings with Richard Lugar (R-IN), which suggested that continued containment of Saddam raised the \u201crisk that Mr. Hussein will play cat-and-mouse with inspectors while building more weapons\u201d and that \u201cif we wait for the danger to become clear and present, it may be too late.\u201d<\/p>\n The first witness at the hearings was\u00a0Richard Butler, a diplomat-in-residence at the Council on Foreign Relations<\/a>\u00a0and former executive chairman of the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM), an inspection regime designed to ensure Iraqi compliance with international protocols on WMD after the first Persian Gulf War.<\/p>\n Butler testified that Saddam\u2019s claims that he had no WMDs was false. Rather, Iraq had the components that were needed to manufacture nuclear weapons and a\u00a0weaponized biological warfare program<\/a>\u00a0with capability of loading anthrax onto missile warheads, and had terminated UNSCOM\u2019s work in order to hide the truth.<\/p>\n In Butler\u2019s view, Saddam was a war criminal who should be on trial at The Hague alongside Serb leader Slobodan Milo\u0161evi\u0107.<\/p>\n The next witness, Khidir Hamza, was an Iraqi nuclear scientist who had defected from Saddam\u2019s regime and told his story in the book,\u00a0Saddam\u2019s Bombmaker: The Daring Escape of the Man Who Built Iraq\u2019s Secret Weapon<\/a>, written with Jeff Stein.<\/p>\n Claiming that Iraqis would welcome an American invasion \u201cwith open arms,\u201d Hamza warned that Saddam Hussein had \u201cturned Iraqi science and engineering enterprises into a \u201cgiant weapons making body.\u201d<\/p>\n He said that Iraq possessed more than ten tons of\u00a0uranium<\/a>, and one ton of slightly\u00a0enriched uranium<\/a>, which he claimed was enough to allow them to build three nuclear weapons by 2005.\u00a0Saddam was also well into chemical warfare production and developing biological warfare capabilities.<\/p>\n According to Hamza, Saddam was a vicious tyrant who had hunted down defectors in exile like his brother-in law Hussein Kamel, who was killed in 1996.<\/p>\n Saddam was further linked to Islamic fundamentalism, training foreign jihadist fighters at an Iraqi intelligence camp twenty miles south of Baghdad, including in tactics of hijacking which was confirmed allegedly by satellite photos.<\/p>\n The Iraqi ambassador to Turkey, Farouk Hijazi, had traveled to Afghanistan and met with Osama bin Laden in 1998.<\/p>\n Most, if not all of Hamza\u2019s information on Iraq\u2019s nuclear weapons program was untrue, and UNSCOM inspectors insist that Hamza was never actually part of Iraq\u2019s nuclear program.<\/p>\n David Albright, who wrote a series of articles on Iraq\u2019s nuclear program, stated that\u00a0Hamza\u2019s unreliability<\/a>\u00a0stemmed from his support for U.S. military action.\u00a0He told me he wanted to get a gun himself and go back and fight with his sons.<\/a><\/p>\n UN weapons inspector\u00a0Scott Ritter<\/a>\u00a0heavily criticized the use of Hamza\u2019s testimony as a rationale for invading Iraq<\/a>. He said:<\/p>\n We seized the entire records of the Iraqi nuclear program, especially the administrative records. We got a name of everybody, where they worked, what they did, and the top of the list, Saddam\u2019s \u2018Bombmaker\u2019 was a man named\u00a0Jafar Dhia Jafar<\/a>, not Khidir Hamza, and if you go down the list of the senior administrative personnel you will not find Hamza\u2019s name in there. In fact, we didn\u2019t find his name at all. Because in 1990, he didn\u2019t work for the Iraqi Nuclear Program. He had no knowledge of it because he worked as a kickback specialist for\u00a0Hussein Kamel<\/a>\u00a0in the Presidential Palace.\u00a0He goes into northern Iraq and meets up with\u00a0Ahmed Chalabi<\/a>.<\/p>\n He walks in and says, \u201cI\u2019m Saddam\u2019s \u2018Bombmaker.\u2019\u201d So they call the CIA and they say, \u201cwe know who you are, you\u2019re not Saddam\u2019s \u2018Bombmaker,\u2019 go sell your story to someone else.\u201d And he was released, he was rejected by all intelligence services at the time, he\u2019s a fraud. And here we are, someone who the\u00a0CIA<\/a>\u00a0knows is a fraud, the U.S. Government knows is a\u00a0fraud,<\/a>\u00a0is allowed to sit in front of the\u00a0United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations<\/a>\u00a0and give testimony as an expert witness.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n These comments provide a stinging rebuke of Biden and his deceit of the American people.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Witness after witness that followed Hamza advanced a similar underlying message to him.<\/p>\n Charles Duelfer, the former executive chairman of UNSCOM, stated from the outset that he favored regime change in Iraq<\/a>, and highlighted, as a source of comparison, the 1919 Versailles Treaty\u2019s failure to prevent Hitler from rearming Germany despite an inspections regime that had been set up.<\/p>\n Duelfer asked subsequently \u201cwhether we were prepared to give back the Saddam regime control over the oil revenues.\u201d He stressed that \u201cour highest priority should be convincing Iraqis in Iraq that they will be\u00a0better off when Saddam was gone, and that he will be gone<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n Lieutenant General Thomas G. McInerney, the former Assistant Vice Chief of the Air Force, detailed before the committee how regime change could be accomplished through \u201cblitz warfare\u201d\u2013a \u201c24-hour, 7 day a week campaign,\u201d using \u201cprecision weapons,\u201d and \u201csupported by fast mobbing ground forces and heavy, light, airborne amphibious, special covert operations working with [Iraqi] opposition forces.\u201d<\/p>\n One of the hearings\u2019 main academic experts, Fouad Ajami, director of Middle East Studies at Johns Hopkins University\u2019s School of Advanced International Studies, emphasized an alleged linkage between Iraq and 9\/11 and said that Muslim hatred of America resulted from jealousy of American success and talent\u2013among the untalented\u2013and not historical factors or opposition to U.S. foreign policies.<\/p>\n Ajami went on to suggest that Americans would be greeted in Baghdad and Basra with \u201ckites and boom boxes\u201d<\/a>\u2014as they allegedly had been in Kabul.<\/p>\n Residents of these cities were \u201ceager for deliverance from the tyranny and the great big prison of Saddam Hussein<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n Rend al-Rahim Francke,\u00a0a cousin and close associate of Ahmed Chalabi<\/a>\u2014a con man who helped lobby for the Iraq War\u2014echoed Ajami in claiming that American troops would be greeted as liberators and said that there would be no civil war after the U.S. invaded.<\/p>\n A member of the\u00a0Committee for the Liberation of Iraq<\/a>, which was set up to lobby Congress to support an invasion of Iraq, she proposed a Bonn meeting for Iraq modeled on Afghanistan to help select the post-Saddam leadership.<\/p>\n The Bonn conference was highly unpopular among Afghans, however, because foreigners selected their leaders for them, and it went against the idea of democracy.<\/p>\n After Saddam was overthrown, Francke was appointed Iraqi ambassador to the U.S., and in 2004 was a\u00a0guest of Laura Bush<\/a>\u00a0in the First Lady\u2019s box at George W. Bush\u2019s State of the Union address. Subsequently, she established the Iraqi-American Freedom Alliance, whose aim was to show the positive consequences of the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq.<\/p>\n The few skeptics who testified at the hearing mainly raised questions about tactics, economic cost and military feasibility of regime change and how long it might take to stabilize the country, but not about the potential cost for Iraqis or hidden underlying motives behind U.S. policy.[6]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n Dr. Phebe Marr, an Iraq expert and former professor at the National Defense University, was characteristic in considering the goal of regime change to be\u00a0\u201cambitious.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n She stated:<\/p>\n If the United States is going to take the responsibility for removing the current leadership, it should assume that it cannot get the results it wants \u2018on the cheap.\u2019 It must be prepared to put some troops on the ground, provide advisors to help create new institutions, and, above all, spend time and effort in the future to see the project through to a satisfactory end. If the United States is not willing to do so, it had best rethink the project.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n In short, the United States should try to be good colonials and initiate a sustained long-term military and political commitment or none at all\u2014hardly an anti-war position.<\/p>\n In the afternoon session of the last day, former\u00a0Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger<\/a>\u00a0(1981-1987), branded Saddam Hussein as a \u201cpurveyor of evil\u201d and \u201cimplacable\u201d and \u201cpermanent foe of the United States,\u201d and former National Security Adviser\u00a0Sandy Berger<\/a>\u00a0(1993-1996), called Saddam a \u201cmenace to his own people and the stability of the region.\u201d<\/p>\n Emphasizing Saddam\u2019s link to terrorist groups such as the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and Hamas, and al-Qaeda\u2019s growing presence in Iraq, Weinberger was most strident in his support for preemptive war.<\/p>\n The United States, he said, had successfully \u201cchanged several regimes after World War II\u201d and \u201cin each case, the result was a \u201cvast and major improvement.\u201d<\/p>\n While Senator Russell Feingold (D-WI) praised Biden for\u00a0\u201cproducing a very fine moment in the history of the [Senate Foreign Relations] Committee,\u201d<\/a>\u00a0anti-war Senators Lincoln Chafee (R-RI) and Paul Wellstone (D-MN) raised concern about the lack of balance.<\/p>\n Chafee told Biden that the panel he had set up \u201cgave the perspective that the threat [from Saddam and his alleged WMDs] was very real, very immediate\u201d but that it would have been\u00a0\u201cgood to have a different perspective [offered].\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n Wellstone was able to get inserted into the record three principled anti-war statements.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The first was written by Phyllis Bennis of the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS). She provided a warning from Nelson Mandela that \u201cattacking Iraq would be a disaster,\u201d and predicted that it would \u201ckill thousands of civilians,\u201d risk the lives of U.S. military personnel, lead to a \u201clong and bloody occupation\u201d and \u201ccost billions of dollars urgently needed at home.\u201d<\/p>\n Bennis noted that there were absolutely no verifiable reports regarding Iraq\u2019s WMD program or evidence of Iraqi involvement in the 9\/11 terrorist attacks\u2014Iraq was in fact antagonistic to bin Laden and vice versa\u2014and she said that preemptive strikes were illegal under international law.<\/p>\n The second anti-war statement came from\u00a0J. Daryl Byler of the Mennonite Central Committee\u2019s Washington Office<\/a>, who advocated for a regional approach to Iraq\u2019s disarmament and establishment of an international tribunal as a right way to investigate allegations of crimes against humanity by Saddam Hussein.<\/p>\n Byler noted that, for more than 20 years, ordinary Iraqis had suffered from the aftermath of the Iran-Iraq and Gulf Wars and impact of UN sanctions intended to contain and control the Iraqi government, and that a U.S. invasion would make a bad situation worse and result in the deaths of thousands of children and civilians.<\/p>\n Byler predicted that the war would further destabilize the Middle East and provide \u201cyet another example that the world\u2019s superpower is unilaterally able to impose its will and wish on less powerful countries.\u201d An Iraqi evangelical church leader told his delegation that \u201cwe hope that someday your country will stop doing everything with force.\u201d<\/p>\n The third anti-war statement was written by Dr. Peter Pellet, emeritus professor of nutrition at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and Dr. Colin Rowat, a professor of economics at the University of Manchester.<\/p>\n They emphasized the humanitarian crisis resulting from the U.S. bombing of the electrical grid during the first Persian Gulf War and imposition of economic sanctions and believed that the civilian costs of new military action would be greater than in 1990.<\/p>\n The three principled anti-war statements contrasted markedly with the rest of the hearings and were prescient in their analysis and warnings.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n They did not command the same attention, however, as the regular panelists since they were not issued in-person.[7]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n Their inclusion was a masterful trick designed to sustain the illusion that all sides were represented in the \u201cnational dialogue.\u201d Really, however, it was a staged political event designed to lay the groundwork for war.<\/p>\n Afterwards, President Bush thanked Biden for holding the hearings, and Biden went on all the major television networks to argue for war, citing the lopsided testimony he had arranged. \u201cWe have no choice but to eliminate the threat,\u201d he told\u00a0Meet the Press<\/em>.[8]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n In his memoir,\u00a0Promises to Keep<\/em>\u2014published in 2007 when he was running to be the Democratic Party\u2019s presidential nominee\u2014Biden claimed that the two days of expert testimony at the Senate hearings were \u201ca good start to educating the country about the monumental difficulties of opening up another military front.\u201d<\/p>\n Biden wrote that \u201cnot wanting the president to get locked into going to war,\u201d his intention was to \u201cmake public the disincentives to going to war in Iraq.\u201d[9]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n Prior to the hearings, Biden wrote that President Bush personally assured him that \u201cthere was no plan to take down Iraq\u201d and that he was confident at the time that \u201cSecretary of State Colin Powell was trying to dissuade the president from an invasion.\u201d<\/p>\n Ten days later, however, Biden read in the\u00a0Washington Post<\/em>\u00a0that Bush had signed an intelligence order directing the CIA to undertake a comprehensive covert program to topple Saddam Hussein, including lethal authority to capture the Iraqi president.\u201d Biden wrote that he didn\u2019t ask the administration to send any witnesses as such because \u201cI didn\u2019t want to force their hand.\u201d[10]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n Biden leaves the impression that he was opposed to the war and trying to stop it and did not want to give the Bush administration a voice, stating that the consensus of the experts was that Saddam \u201cwas five to ten years away from developing a nuclear weapon\u201d and \u201cnot an imminent threat.\u201d<\/p>\n However, in his introductory remarks and accompanying\u00a0New York Times<\/em>\u00a0op-ed, Biden had stated that Saddam was a major threat who had to be confronted, and the experts at the hearings testified that Saddam\u00a0was\u00a0<\/em>a grave threat, had WMD, was linked to al-Qaeda, and would have a nuclear weapon within three years; not five to ten.<\/p>\n Biden directly contradicted what he wrote in in his memoir when he told Meet the Press host Tim Russert in April 2007 that\u00a0\u201ceveryone in the world thought he [Saddam] had them [WMDs]. The weapons inspectors said he had them.\u201d<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n In an attempt to show the hearings promoted a cautionary message, Biden referenced the testimony of military expert Anthony Cordesman, who said that war was not a game and quoted from the Roman philosopher Pliny the Elder: \u201cSmall boys throw stones at frogs in jest. But, the frogs do not die in jest. The frogs die in earnest.\u201d[11]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n Cordesman, however, promoted an alarmist narrative about Saddam in his testimony,\u00a0warning about his possession of anthrax weapons with nuclear lethalities, and capacity for carrying out chemical and biological weapon attacks directed against U.S. bases and troops in the Persian Gulf<\/a>. Cordesman further insinuated the need for a full-scale ground invasion since air strikes would not be enough.[12]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n One month and a half after the hearings, Biden gained access to information that disproved the WMD claims, though he never acted upon it.<\/p>\n In a classified hearing on September 24, 2002, at the urging of a staff member, Biden asked then-CIA Director George Tenet what evidence of WMDs the U.S. had \u201ctechnically collected.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNone, Senator,\u201d Tenet said,<\/a>\u00a0according to an account in the book\u00a0Hubris<\/em>, by Michael Isikoff and David Corn. Biden, wondering if there was some highly classified evidence, asked Tenet, \u201cGeorge, do you want me to clear the staff out of the room?\u201d Tenet told him no.\u00a0\u201cThere\u2019s no reason to, Senator.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n Later in that same hearing, Biden heard from two government witnesses who rejected the \u201caluminum tubes<\/a>\u201d claim that had been circulating, and would later become a centerpiece of Secretary of State Colin Powell\u2019s presentation to the United Nations promoting preemptive war.<\/p>\n Biden nevertheless would go on to vote in favor of the war on Iraq, even though he knew that the stated reasons\u2014that Saddam had WMD\u2014was unproven or false, and lied about this later.<\/p>\n After hearing from Tenet, Biden, with Richard Lugar and Chuck Hagel (R-NE), proposed an\u00a0alternative to George W. Bush\u2019s war resolution<\/a>\u00a0that would only allow Bush to attack Iraq for the purpose of destroying WMD\u00a0and<\/em>\u00a0only after seeking UN approval.<\/p>\n If the UN turned Bush down, he would have to come back to Congress and prove Saddam posed a WMD threat so \u201cgrave\u201d that only military action could eliminate it.<\/p>\n When Biden\u2019s plan was derailed, however, through the work of Dick Gephardt (D-MI), the Democratic Party leader in the House, Biden backed Bush\u2019s war resolution.<\/p>\n On October 10, 2002, on the eve of the vote, Biden repeated before the Senate his claims about Saddam\u2019s threat and pursuit of nuclear weapons and framed military intervention as a \u201cmarch to peace and security,\u201d specifying that the \u201cthreat need not be imminent for us to take action.\u201d<\/p>\n The next day, Biden was one of 77 Senators who\u00a0voted to authorize military force in Iraq<\/a>, joining fellow Democrats Hillary Clinton, Chuck Schumer, Harry Reid, John Kerry, and Dianne Feinstein.<\/p>\n In early November, Biden introduced the Iraqi Scientists Liberation Act before the Senate, which granted\u00a0permanent residency status to 500 Iraqi scientists<\/a>\u00a0if they supplied information on weapons of mass destruction.<\/p>\n\u201cTake This Son of a Bitch Down\u201d<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Mobilizing Support for War<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Exclusion of Voices for Peace<\/strong><\/h2>\n
\n
Twisting the Truth<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Biden Ignores CIA Director\u2019s Assessment<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Biden Votes for War<\/strong><\/h2>\n