THE WHITE HOUSE

WASHINGTON

September 19, 2002

Dear Speaker Hastert, Leader Daschle, Leader Lott, and Leader Gephardt,

As a follow-up to your discussion yesterday morning with the President, we enclose a suggested form of resolution with respect to Iraq. We stand ready to meet with you or your staffs to discuss our proposal.

As the President indicated to you, it is our hope that we can reach early agreement on the proposal at the leadership level to allow you to proceed to consider the resolution in your respective chambers as soon as possible.

Joint Resolution

To authorize the use of United States Armed Forces against Iraq.

Whereas Congress in 1998 concluded that Iraq was then in material and unacceptable breach of its international obligations and thereby threatened the vital interests of the United States and international peace and security, stated the reasons for that conclusion, and urged the President to take appropriate action to bring Iraq into compliance with its international obligations (Public Law 105-235);

Whereas Iraq remains in material and unacceptable breach of its international obligations by, among other things, continuing to possess and develop a significant chemical and biological weapons capability, actively seeking a nuclear weapons capability, and supporting and harboring terrorist organizations, thereby continuing to threaten the national security interests of the United States and international peace and security;

Whereas Iraq persists in violating resolutions of the United Nations Security Council by continuing to engage in brutal repression of its civilian population, including the Kurdish peoples, thereby threatening international peace and security in the region, by refusing to release, repatriate, or account for non-Iraqi citizens wrongfully detained by Iraq, and by failing to return property wrongfully seized by Iraq from Kuwait;

Whereas the current Iraqi regime has demonstrated its capability and willingness to use weapons of mass destruction against other nations and its own people;

Whereas the current Iraqi regime has demonstrated its continuing hostility toward, and willingness to attack, the United States, including by attempting in 1993 to assassinate former President Bush and by firing on many thousands of occasions on United States and Coalition Armed Forces engaged in enforcing the resolutions of the United Nations Security Council;

Whereas members of al Qaida, an organization bearing responsibility for attacks on the United States, its citizens, and interests, including the attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, are known to be in Iraq;

Whereas Iraq continues to aid and harbor other international terrorist organizations, including organizations that threaten the lives and safety of American citizens;

Whereas the attacks on the United States of September 11, 2001 underscored the gravity of the threat that Iraq will transfer weapons of mass destruction to international terrorist organizations;

Whereas the United States has the inherent right, as acknowledged in the United Nations Charter, to use force in order to defend itself;

Whereas Iraq's demonstrated capability and willingness to use weapons of mass destruction, the high risk that the current Iraqi regime will either employ those weapons to launch a surprise attack against the United States or its Armed Forces or provide them to international terrorists

who would do so, and the extreme magnitude of harm that would result to the United States and its citizens from such an attack, combine to justify the use of force by the United States in order to defend itself,

Whereas Iraq is in material breach of its disarmament and other obligations under United Nations Security Council Resolution 687, to cease repression of its civilian population that threatens international peace and security under United Nations Security Council Resolution 688, and to cease threatening its neighbors or United Nations operations in Iraq under United Nations Security Council Resolution 949, and United Nations Security Council Resolution 678 authorizes use of all necessary means to compel Iraq to comply with these "subsequent relevant resolutions;"

Whereas Congress in the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution (Public Law 102-1) has authorized the President to use the Armed Forces of the United States to achieve full implementation of Security Council Resolutions 660, 661, 662, 664, 665, 666, 667, 669, 670, 674, and 677, pursuant to Security Council Resolution 678;

Whereas Congress in section 1095 of Public Law 102-190 has stated that it "supports the use of all necessary means to achieve the goals of Security Council Resolution 687 as being consistent with the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq (Public Law 102-1)," that Iraq's repression of its civilian population violates United Nations Security Council Resolution 688 and "constitutes a continuing threat to the peace, security, and stability of the Persian Gulf region," and that Congress "supports the use of all necessary means to achieve the goals of Resolution 688";

Whereas Congress in the Iraq Liberation Act (Public Law 105-338) has expressed its sense that it should be the policy of the United States to support efforts to remove from power the current Iraqi regime and promote the emergence of a democratic government to replace that regime;

Whereas the President has authority under the Constitution to take action in order to deter and prevent acts of international terrorism against the United States, as Congress recognized in the joint resolution on Authorization for Use of Military Force (Public Law 107-40); and

Whereas the President has authority under the Constitution to use force in order to defend the national security interests of the United States;

Now, therefore, be it

Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

This joint resolution may be cited as the "Further Resolution on Iraq".

SEC. 2. AUTHORIZATION FOR USE OF UNITED STATES ARMED FORCES.

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.

Would you read that, Mr. Secretary, to empower you to conduct offensive operations, even if there are U.N. inspectors in-country maintaining to the world that they are carrying out the resolutions of the U.N.?

Secretary RUMSFELD. Senator, the last thing I'm going to do as Secretary of Defense is to try to interpret a resolution that I've not read. I'm not a lawyer. It's a matter for the Department of State and the White House that undoubtedly drafted this. What it might or might not authorize is not for me to say.

Senator REED. Well, let me ask simply, do you have any comments on the wisdom of such a potential scenario where we would be attacking while the U.N. was in-country? Again, I raise this issue, because I don't think it's that farfetched.

Secretary RUMSFELD. Yes.

Senator REED. It seems to me what the Iraqis are trying to do. U.N. inspectors in the country say they're getting cooperation. We all understand it would take months in simply administrative work in which the Iraqis could be quite, "cooperative.” What is the wisdom of an attack in that situation?

Secretary RUMSFELD. Well, clearly, I can't read the Iraqis minds, I have to admit that, but their ploy consistently has been to delay, to pretend, and then to change their mind and then to alter their position.

Now, you're right, that takes time, and time is to their advantage. The longer the time is, the less likely there's something going to happen. The more inspectors that are in there, the less likely something's going to happen. The longer nothing happens, the more advanced their weapon programs go along. The longer things are delayed, the greater the likelihood that world attention will turn elsewhere, and the U.N. will once again go back into the mode that we've been in for the last 11 years of being inattentive to those violations.

So I guess I agree with you with respect to the reason for their offering the inspections, supposedly.

Senator REED. Mr. Secretary, I would suggest that that might be a very likely scenario in which we would be contemplating military action. I think it bears great study by the administration.

General Myers, let me turn to a more operational question. Throughout the afternoon, we've talked about the use of CBR— chemical/biological/radiological weapons. Many times, the response and not just in this hearing, but others-is to point to the facility of our military units to deal with these weapons, and I acknowledge that. When we're buttoned up in tanks, when we have protective suits on, we can mitigate the threat dramatically. But it seems to me, based upon the experience in the Gulf War-and you are a more astute observer than I am-that our biggest vulnerability will be in the ports of disembarkation, where it will take up to 30 to 60 days to inflow the armor and the troops to marry up with armor to move out in a ground attack. The one lesson that is compelling from the Gulf War, at least I would suggest to the Iraqis, is, "If you let the United States build up, you'll lose every time, and you'll lose decisively." This suggests the strong possibility that they will use chemical and biological weapons against the port of disembarkation in the region before we conduct ground operations. Can you comment upon the probability of that and the likelihood of that and to the extent that would disrupt our operations? General MYERS. Well, absolutely, Senator Reed. It's very hard to calculate the probability, so we assume worst case. Without getting

into a lot of the operational details, again, the first thing you would do is try to attack whatever infrastructure associated with WMD you could. That would be the first thing you would do. We have already talked about some of the passive defenses.

You would also have active defenses, in terms of PAC-3. The PAC-3 missile was specifically designed for the slower missile-delivery systems. Any other delivery systems, aircraft, whatever, you'd work air defenses very hard to ensure they wouldn't be a factor. Then you'd try to-and, again, I don't want to tread too far into the operational details make sure that you don't have a single point of failure. You would take steps to plan ahead so you could work around these issues.

There is no doubt-and I don't want to paint too rosy a picture here that weapons of mass destruction would be a horrible thing to have on the battlefield. They could panic a civilian population for sure, which would cause you problems alone. It would slow down the fight. It can cause us problems in logistics, as you mentioned. So, at least in this hearing, if we were asked to do that, we would plan for worst-case and then we would plan around that.

Senator REED. My time is expired, and I don't require a response, but I would assume there is significant collateral damage to the civilian populations and others if these weapons are deployed, and I assume that's correct.

General MYERS. Well, it depends on how they're employed. But, like I said, one of the things you'd worry about is panic among the civilian population and then you'd have to try to mitigate that some way, and it certainly would be a planning factor.

Senator REED. Thank you.

Chairman LEVIN. Thank you, Senator Reed.

Senator Roberts.

Senator ROBERTS. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I would ask the Chairman if it is his wish that the Intelligence Committee, which is meeting as we speak, and in the midst of the ongoing September 11 investigation and in the midst of being investigated by itself by the FBI, have a hearing on a recent magazine article about something that happened, allegedly, 20 years ago in regards to the U.S. supplying materials to Iraq in reference to their capability with weapons of mass destruction.

We might also ask them to have additional questions in regards to the Oil for Food Program, which Saddam has used billions, I think, to build up his weapons of mass destruction, sanctions violations on the part of the French and the Russians and, for that matter, China, which has also aided and abetted that ability. I would hope that that hearing would include that as well as speculation on something that happened 20 years ago.

I have a real quick question for General Myers. On page 8 of your testimony, you indicated we have made similar improvements virtually to all aspects of our joint team. I think we all know that this will be a an improved joint war fighting team. The Secretary has also indicated that, as well. I don't remember what page it was on, but he certainly made reference to that.

During the recent challenge that we called the Millennium Challenge 2002-I'm summing up here-there has been some speculation that the Red Team effectively used what we call asymmetric