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(回答先: Bush to Outline Doctrine of Striking Foes First 投稿者 たにん 日時 2002 年 9 月 20 日 21:48:40)
September 20, 2002
By TODD S. PURDUM and ELISABETH BUMILLER
ASHINGTON, Sept. 19 President Bush asked Congress today for sweeping authority to use "all means he determines to be appropriate, including force" to disarm Iraq and dislodge Saddam Hussein, and warned: "If the United Nations Security Council won't deal with the problem, the United States and some of our friends will."
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"If you want to keep the peace, you've got to have the authorization to use force," Mr. Bush told reporters in the Oval Office after meeting with Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and other senior officials working to overcome French and Russian resistance in the Security Council and draft a new resolution there holding Iraq to account.
It was a whirlwind day on multiple fronts as Mr. Bush made his hardest push yet for swift action on Iraq. Secretary Powell and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld took the administration's case to Capitol Hill, where senior leaders of both parties expressed general support for Mr. Bush's request but signaled that there would be changes in wording.
At the United Nations, Iraq's foreign minister read a combative letter from Mr. Hussein, insisting his country had no weapons of mass destruction but attacking the Bush administration for a "cyclone of American accusations and fabricated crises against Iraq."
Mr. Bush, in seeking Congressional approval for a possible military strike, made a long string of charges, including repeated Iraqi violation of a decade of United Nations resolutions on disarmament and repression of minorities, Iraq's attempt to assassinate President Bush's father in 1993, its support for international terrorist organizations and the presence of Qaeda members who, he said, "are known to be in Iraq."
After citing Congress's own 1998 declaration that American policy should be to remove the Iraqi leadership and promote democracy in its place, the draft concludes: "The president is authorized to use all means that he determines to be appropriate, including force, in order to enforce the United Nations Security Council resolutions referenced above, defend the national security interests of the United States against the threat posed by Iraq, and restore international peace and security in the region."
Senior Congressional leaders of both parties said they expected some changes in wording, particularly to the line about restoring international peace in the region.
"We are interested and determined to keep the focus on Iraq, not on Iran or other countries in the region that also pose a threat to the United States," said the Senate majority leader, Tom Daschle, Democrat of South Dakota.
Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr., Democrat of Delaware and chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, said: "I'm sure the president isn't specifically asking us for unilateral authority to move against Syria or Lebanon if there's not peace on the Lebanese border. So what does it mean?"
The Republican leader, Senator Trent Lott of Mississippi, said the resolution was "very strong" but added, "The president has made it clear he wants to have input from the Congress, and we'll have to see what recommendations are made."
At the United Nations, Iraq's foreign minister followed up his offer on Monday to readmit international weapons inspectors by reading a letter from Mr. Hussein.
"I hereby declare before you that Iraq is totally clear of all nuclear, chemical and biological weapons," the minister, Naji Sabri, said, quoting Mr. Hussein. "Our country is ready to receive any scientific experts, accompanied by politicians you choose to represent any one of your countries, to tell us which places and scientific and industrial installations they would wish to see."
Mr. Bush said he had not heard the speech, but dismissed it as "the same old song and dance we've heard for 11 years."
But the Russian defense minister, Sergei B. Ivanov, whose country is one of five on the Security Council with veto power, indicated that his government's first priority was the return of inspectors, leaving unsettled the issue of a new Council resolution.
"I think we can easily establish whether there exists or not weapons of mass destruction technology, some sort of program, preparation of cooking something which shouldn't be done," Mr. Ivanov said at an appearance at the Pentagon with Secretary Rumsfeld.
Testifying on Capitol Hill before the House International Relations Committee, Secretary Powell said Iraq was already in "material breach" of a long string of United Nations resolutions. He said Iraq must unconditionally remove all weapons of mass destruction, end all support for terrorism, cease persecution of civilians, account for gulf war prisoners and end all illicit trade outside the oil-for-food program.
"I ask for your immediate action on such a resolution to show the world that we are united in this effort," Secretary Powell said.
Mr. Rumsfeld, who pressed the president's case before the Senate Armed Services Committee, argued that even rigorous weapons inspections in Iraq were not likely to lead to the elimination of Baghdad's weapons of mass destruction, because the current inspection system has fewer teeth than the one in place immediately after the gulf war.
"There's no doubt in my mind but that the inspection program that currently is on the books wouldn't work because it's so much weaker than the earlier one," he said.
He also took pains to explain that allowing inspectors in with no realistic chance they would disarm Iraq would only play into Baghdad's "ploy" to delay tougher measures.
"The more inspectors that are in there, the less likely something is going to happen," Mr. Rumsfeld said. "The longer nothing happens, the more advanced their weapons programs go along."
Several senators asked how the United States might mitigate the potential for Iraq to use chemical or biological weapons against American troops or allies in the region.
Mr. Rumsfeld said the United States would seek to deter Iraqi field commanders with harsh reprisals, but did not lay out specifics.
"We would have to make very clear to them that what we are concerned about in Iraq is the Saddam Hussein regime, and the regime is not all the soldiers and it's not all the people and that they ought to be very careful about functioning in that chain of command for weapons of mass destruction," he said.
After the hearing, Gen. Richard B. Myers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Iraqi commanders who used chemical or biological weapons would be hunted down and tried by war crimes tribunals.
The proposed Congressional resolution was drafted in the offices of Alberto R. Gonzales, the White House counsel, and Condoleezza Rice, the president's national security adviser. It builds on resolutions against Iraq approved by Congress in 1991 and 1998, but has as its central justification pre-emption, or "anticipatory self-defense," which a senior administration official today defined as the right of the United States to attack a country that it thinks could attack it first.
Although the resolution does not use the words "regime change," senior administration officials said today that ousting Mr. Hussein was implicitly woven into its 16 points.
Some leading Congressional figures sounded skepticism about the president's approach. Senator Carl Levin, Democrat of Michigan, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said he would prefer a resolution urging United Nations action.
"Going it alone has some very significant risks," Mr. Levin said, adding: "I'd like the focus of a resolution to be on urging the U.N. to take action. It's lot different for Saddam Hussein to be looking down the barrel of a gun that is held by the world."
Senator Russell D. Feingold, Democrat of Wisconsin and a frequent critic of the administration, issued a statement calling the White House's draft resolution "incredibly broad."
"Not only does it fail to adequately define the mission in question, it appears to actually authorize the president to do virtually anything anywhere in the Middle East, a proposal that no doubt will alarm many of our most important allies in the fight against terrorism," he said.
TRACES OF TERROR: POLITICAL MEMO; With Focus Shifting to Iraq, Domestic Issues Fade (September 6, 2002) $
A NATION CHALLENGED: THE LEADERS; A Flurry of Hugs for 'Gang of Five' in Capital (October 23, 2001) $
Senator Byrd Scolds Colleagues For Lack of Debate After Attack (October 2, 2001) $
A NATION CHALLENGED: THE RESOLUTION; Measure Backing Bush's Use of Force Is as Broad as a Declaration of War, Experts Say (September 18, 2001) $
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