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2007 Speeches
Iran: No, Not Again
House of Representatives - July 17, 2007
Mr. Speaker, for years the administration has been rigging its case for war against Iran with posturing, finger-wagging and name calling. Those are not my words. One of my hometown daily newspapers, the Seattle Post Intelligencer, authored those words as the first sentence of an editorial they published this morning entitled: ``Iran: No, not again.'' I will insert the Seattle PI editorial into the Record at this point.
[From the Seattle Post-Intelligener Editorial Board, July 17, 2007]
Iran: No, Not Again
For years, this administration has been rigging its case for war against Iran, with posturing, finger wagging and name-calling.
And now, just as Iran has struck an agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency for inspection of its nuclear plants, and just as the IAEA chief, Mohamed ElBaradei, has said that country is slowing progress on one of those facilities, the United Kingdom's Guardian newspaper reports that Vice President Dick Cheney is pushing for a military ``solution'' in Iran. Naturally, President Bush is backing him, going against Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates, both of whom favor diplomacy over military action (heck, it worked with North Korea).
In May, Cheney paid a visit to the USS John C. Stennis in the Persian Gulf, 150 miles off Iran's coast, for no other reason than to deliver threats. The New York Times reported that while Cheney said nothing new, he ``stitched all of those warnings together, and the symbolism of sending the administration's most famous hawk to deliver the speech so close to Iran's coast was unmistakable.''
The U.S. rode roughshod over ElBaradei's insistence that Iraq didn't have weapons of mass destruction (he was right). And look where we are now. More than 3,000 American troops and tens of thousands of Iraqis dead in war that defies reason and sees no end. We fear the same might happen in Iran.
The fact is, the mainstream newspapers at home and around the world
[Page: H7960] GPO's PDF
are expressing grave concerns over what they fear may be the sequel to Iraq, namely, a military strike against Iran.
One of the sources used by the PI editorial is the Guardian newspaper of the United Kingdom which published a story yesterday with this headline: ``Cheney Pushes Bush to Act on Iran.''
The Guardian reports that: ``The balance in the internal White House debate over Iran has shifted back in favor of military action before President George Bush leaves office in 18 months.''
Ominously, the story adds: ``Although the Bush administration is in deep trouble over Iraq, it remains focused on Iran. A well-placed source in Washington said, `Bush is not going to leave office with Iran still in limbo.' ''
Thoughtful newspapers and other worldwide people believe the Vice President is pushing for a military strike against Iran. The Vice President's presence and speech aboard an aircraft carrier near Iran in mid-May sent an unmistakable message, says the New York Times.
As the Guardian reports, The Vice President is winning the war for war inside the administration, and now the American people have to be brought along. That means the administration and its surrogates will make the data say what they need it to say.
We're already beginning to see how a new national intelligence assessment released just today will be manipulated. The report makes a persuasive and fact-driven case for getting our soldiers out of Iraq, because the President shifted away from the real war against terrorism to pursue his own agenda in Iraq.
But instead of a sober assessment of what's gone wrong in Iraq, we're hearing that terrorists have reconstituted their operations inside Iran. And the insinuation for military action is clear.
Like many, I would like to know what's really going on in Iran and what Iranian leaders are thinking and doing. Well, where can we turn for an assessment we can trust? We know the Vice President wants to use deadly force in Iran. We know that there are credible media reports that say the Vice President is winning the war to go to war with Iran. So how are we going to get accurate and reliable information from this administration or anyone associated with it?
Today, the State Department announced it wants a new meeting directly with Iran to talk face-to-face, government-to-government. Ordinarily, I would see this as a welcome, even positive, sign that the administration has finally begun to see the wisdom in diplomacy.
Is that the case, or is an announcement that comes on the same day as the New Intelligence Estimate a sign that the Vice President is about to declare mission accomplished? We don't know the answer, and we don't know what happened in Iraq.
But we do know what happened in Iraq. The PI editorial board reminds us how the administration ran over the International Atomic Energy Agency, its chief, to make a war in Iraq, quoting the PI. Look where we are now, more than 3,000 American troops and tens of thousands of Iraqis dead in a war that defies reason and sees no end. We fear the same may happen in Iran. So do I.
Tell the President not to go after Iran.
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