For Whom the Flip Flops
JOHN KERRY AND HIS IRAQ VOTE:
LET HIM BE CLEAR...
October 9, 2002: "Let me be clear: I am voting to give this authority to the President for one reason and one reason only: to disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction if we cannot accomplish that objective through new tough weapons inspections."
April 3, 2003: "I voted to give the President to have a legitimate threat of force for the reasons he gave: to go to the United Nations and form a coalition. This President failed. It was a failure of diplomacy." (Manchester Union Leader, 4/3/03)
May 30, 2003: Kerry, though, said those in Congress who supported the war "are blameless should no evidence turn up." (AP, 5/30/2003)
July 8, 2003: "I believe that I voted absolutely correctly," he said. (AP, 7/08/2003)
July 13, 2003: "And moreover, he [George Bush] did not need our authority to do what he was going to do. The president has the inherent authority. Bill Clinton went to Kosovo without a vote by Congress. Bill Clinton went to Haiti without a vote by Congress. What we did was provide the threat of force, and what the president didn't do is provide the diplomacy and the leadership necessary to put in place the kind of coalition that could win the peace." (CNN Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer, 7/13/2003)
August 11, 2003: "I have the exact same position today that I had then, which is: I voted the right way, I'm proud of the vote, it was a vote for the security of the United States of America based on Saddam Hussein's long record of trying to assassinate a president of the United States, invading another country, lobbing 3 missiles into Israel, and we discovered over 7 and a half years more chemical weapons, more biological weapons than we thought he had, and he was further down the road to nuclear development than we thought. That's our own actual findings. I voted to give the President the threat of force, which was appropriate in order to be able to hold Saddam Hussein accountable. What I regret, and I said it earlier, is that this President did not know how to do that properly. This President didn't do the hard work of diplomacy. This President didn't have the patience. This President didn't know how to give meaning to the words 'last resort,' that I learned so well the meaning of in Vietnam when we lost the legitimacy and consent of the American people. And what I wanted this President to do was to give truth to those words. The United States of America shouldn't go to war because we want to; we ought to go to war because we have to. And you don't have to until you've exhausted all the remedies. I was trying to set up a standard by which a President of the United States appropriately takes America to war, and that is the standard I would apply if I were the President of the United States. (Sheet Metal Workers Union, Democratic Presidential Forum, 8/11/2003)
August 18, 2003: "We have to vote where we vote. My vote was the correct vote for the President of the United States to have a threat of force to hold Saddam Hussein accountable to the very agreement he signed. But we all had a right as Americans to expect that the president of the United States would use that authority properly. He did not in my judgment." (NPR 8/18/03)
August 31, 2003: "I took a position to protect the security of the country, but I also took the position to do it in a way that defended America's values, that defended the troops... That means every country possible by our side. I believe the United States deserved to have the broadest coalition."
August 31, 2003 "And the fact is in the resolution we passed we did not empower the President to do regime change, we empowered him only with respect to the relevant resolutions of the United Nations."
September 2, 2003: "I voted to threaten the use of force to make Saddam Hussein comply with the resolutions of the United Nations. I believe that was right - but it was wrong to rush to war without building a true international coalition - and with no plan to win the peace."
September 3, 2003: "It's the time for real leadership. I voted correctly on the issue of going to the United Nations and threatening force, legitimate, real, credible threat of force, in order to hold Saddam Hussein accountable, and make our country safer... The President and Colin Powell said to us they were going to build the coalition. They made - Colin Powell came to our committee - and said that war would be the last resort, and that the only reason were weapons of mass destruction. Now there's more than just the vote. I think the vote was the right thing to do... The President didn't need our authorization. What we were doing was creating a one voice message to the United Nations, to the world, and to Saddam Hussein. It was the right message to send, and I stand by it."
So let's get this straight: If John Kerry's position(s) are that he voted only to disarm Saddam (but that he's not responsible if weapons don't turn up), or because he tried to assassinate a former president, or he voted to give a threat of force, in a way that defended our troops, without empowering the President to do regime change, that he was voting to go to the United Nations, that the President and Colin Powell fooled him into thinking they were going to war as a last resort, and that they really didn't need congressional authorization anyway (so it's not his fault regardless), and that all his vote did was send a unified message... Then perhaps the Senator should re-read the resolution that he voted for:
AUTHORIZATION FOR USE OF UNITED STATES ARMED FORCES.
(a) AUTHORIZATION- The President is authorized to use the Armed Forces of the United States as he determines to be necessary and appropriate in order to
(1) defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq; and
(2) enforce all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq.
posted by Michael Bryan @ 10/12/2003 01:30:00 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home