Daschle Loses It
HAYES, STEPHEN F.
Daschle Loses It The Senate minority leader's responsibility gap. BY STEPHEN F. HAYES MUCH OF THE WORLD focused last week on Saddam Hussein's continuing failure to comply with u.N. demands for...
...Then, as now, France, Russia, and China opposed doing anything about Iraqi intransigence...
...He would eliminate the threat...
...Today, we are likely to have Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, oman, and Saudi Arabia...
...But I—^well, the cruise missiles are the smart weapons...
...And the tortured logic he employs to question the main premise of the Bush administration's Iraq policy—that Saddam Hussein possesses weapons of mass destruction—exposes him as a political opportunist...
...No, I don't think that that's in our interest...
...The Bush administration also seems to have won the support of Jordan, a nation that didn't support Clinton in 1998 and even remained neutral in the 1991 Gulf War...
...In 1995, Hussein Kamal, Saddam's son-in-law, and chief organizer of Iraq's weapons-of-mass-destruction program, defected to Jordan...
...Some of Daschle's fellow Democrats are nervous...
...We know that Iraq is developing deadlier ways to deliver these horrible weapons, including unmanned drones and long-range ballistic missiles...
...He delivered a stinging indictment of the Bush administration, charging, among many other things, that President Bush has been misleading the American people...
...He spent the week undermining the president by questioning his honesty...
...That belief might explain what Daschle did next...
...And then, as now, several allies supported our efforts...
...resolutions requiring Saddam to prove that he has disarmed...
...For, as Daschle surely knows, if President Bush had proof that the Iraqi threat were imminent, to say nothing of "very imminent," the president wouldn't waste time publishing the evidence...
...sanctions that have strangled the Iraqi economy...
...Most of the countries supporting President Clinton in 1998 support President Bush today—the notable exceptions being Germany and Canada...
...If he wants to sit down and negotiate, we will do so...
...It is essential for us to consult with the international community now...
...There is no explanation of the connection between Iraq's extensive unmanned aerial vehicle programs and chemical or biological agent dispersal...
...He detailed the many examples of Iraq's refusal to comply with U.N...
...And it's not true...
...The more he talked, the more obvious it became that he is challenging not only the Bush administration's strategy for dealing with Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, but also its claim that Iraq possesses such weapons...
...Daschle is primarily concerned that President Bush has not proven that Saddam Hussein presents, in Daschle's words, "a very imminent threat...
...I like Tom and he's in a tough position here," says fellow Democrat Evan Bayh, senator from Indiana...
...And that's the issue...
...I put the question to him directly...
...He revealed that Iraq was continuing to conceal weapons and missiles and the capacity to build many more...
...There are also gaps in accounting for such deadly items as 1.5 tons of the nerve gas VX, 550 mustard filled artillery shells, and 400 biological weapons-capable aerial bombs that the U.N...
...Last Monday, chief U.N...
...It may also explain why Daschle seems to be taking cues from the likes of Rep...
...Short of that, there's no purpose in more talk...
...one that Daschle himself was buying as recently as four months ago was Saddam's record in the area of weapons of mass destruction...
...Here's Daschle from his recent appearance at the National Press Club: "The White House has given many reasons: because Saddam is a threat to his neighbors, because he gassed the Kurds, because he tried to kill the first President Bush, because he's making weapons of mass destruction, because, they say, he was involved in September 11...
...It would not surprise me if they came out with some information that is not provable, and they, they shift it...
...What was that about a credibility gap...
...demands for disarmament, and on President Bush's State of the Union address Tuesday...
...I don't understand those who want to wait until the threat is imminent," Bayh says...
...This despite 12 years of Iraqi noncompliance and 17 U.N...
...Nor is there information on 13 recent Iraqi missile tests cited by Dr...
...Dan Rather, not the soaps, greeted viewers who tuned in on their lunch hour...
...Actually, he was convinced even before President Clinton "made the case" on February 17...
...Daschle was more specific in his talk at the press club...
...For example, Iraq revised its nuclear declarations four times within just 14 months and it has submitted six different biological warfare declarations, each of which has been rejected by UNSCOM...
...When they give so many rotating reasons it makes people wonder which one is the real one, or if the real reason is none of the above...
...Given that, what other option is there but to force them to do so?' That's what they're saying...
...inspections on Iraqi soil, (2) that he disarmed despite his refusal to do so for the seven years inspectors were in Iraq (1991-1998), and (3) that he somehow failed to notify the international community of this disarmament—a heads-up that would have ended the U.N...
...As Daschle said on the floor of the Senate on October 10, 2002: "We know that Iraq maintains stockpiles of some of the world's deadliest chemical weapons including VX, sarin, and mustard gas...
...And in a floor speech two days later, Daschle discussed the Iraqi threat not in terms of the weapons of mass destruction that Saddam Hussein has, but of those he "could acquire...
...The issue isn't how many arguments there are but whether they are sound...
...Not content I merely to offer rhetorical backing to President Clinton, Daschle tried to rally his fellow Democrats to support the use of force...
...Still, Bayh rejects Daschle's argument...
...Leave aside the point that the White House has been careful not to claim there is evidence linking Saddam to September 11...
...Jim McDermott, one of three "Baghdad Democrats" who traveled to Iraq last fall to criticize the Bush administration...
...Then and only then did Iraq admit to developing numbers of weapons in significant quantities and weapon stocks...
...Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle had a different agenda...
...This is the key question...
...You don't think Saddam disarmed unilaterally, do you...
...We have got to force them to comply, and we are doing so militarily...
...He reiterated the administration's argument...
...Clinton gave a strong speech...
...Does Tom Daschle...
...There's no purpose in more talk...
...Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz catalogued the omissions in a recent speech at the Council on Foreign Relations...
...The result, he said, is a "credibility gap" between the wartime leader and those he is responsible for protecting...
...No, I don't mean that...
...Three times he stated that the "burden of proof" is on the Bush administration...
...McDermott didn't back down: "I believe that sometimes they give out misinformation...
...First, the history...
...Look, we have exhausted virtually our diplomatic effort to get the Iraqis to comply with their own agreements and with international law...
...It seems less a realistic request of the Bush administration than a deliberately unattainable standard of evidence...
...Yet Daschle's own record on the matter of using force in Iraq reveals him to be a hypocrite...
...and Democrats on national security issues...
...Security Council in early December 2002...
...Blix that exceeded the 150-kilometer limit...
...weapons inspectors left Iraq in 1998, Saddam Hussein still had not accounted for vast stocks of chemical and biological weapons produced in the 1980s and 1990s...
...He now insists on both from the Bush administration...
...Six days earlier, as the U.S.-Iraq standoff intensified, a reporter had asked about a suggestion from Saddam Hussein that members of Congress fly to Baghdad to negotiate...
...Previously, it had vehemently denied the very thing it just simply admitted once Saddam Hussein's son-in-law defected to Jordan and told the truth...
...And the answer is, we don't have another option...
...In 1998, we had Kuwait...
...And I guess for Tom not to recognize that would be political suicide...
...Clinton's speech was important enough to warrant a CBS News Special Report...
...Another major difference is found in the support from Gulf countries...
...In fact, the Clinton administration's position, as articulated by National Security Adviser Sandy Berger, was that both steps were unnecessary...
...War is a very strong word, but something akin to war is definitely planned," reported Rather "Our men and women are in position, if given the command to strike by the president of the United States, and the president is going to talk about his reasons for considering putting those men and women in even greater danger...
...That assertion places Daschle on the farthest antiwar fringe of his party, for it raises the possibility that Saddam Hussein is telling the truth and George W. Bush is lying...
...But before I could point that out, Daschle had reverted to his talking points on burdens of proof and imminent threats...
...once again, he called for evidence of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction...
...If we have proof of nuclear and biological weapons, why don't we show that proof to the world, as President Kennedy did 40 years ago when he sent Adlai Stevenson to the United Nations to show the world U.S...
...Five years IjP ago, on February 17, 1998, with ll troops massing in the Persian ^ Gulf, President Clinton went to the ] Pentagon to prepare the nation for the likelihood of war...
...Just consider some of the facts," he said...
...The consequences of error could be catastrophic...
...When U.N...
...Do we wait until the missiles are launched, until the smallpox is in the country...
...weapons inspector Hans Blix addressed the Security Council...
...Daschle's posturing makes the top Senate Democrat look less like a concerned statesman than a determined political opponent...
...Special Commission concluded in 1999 Iraq had failed to account for...
...The base of the Democratic party is in profound disagreement with the rest of the country on this issue...
...Even if this were true, it hardly explains the vast differences between Tom Daschle in 1998 and Tom Daschle in 2003...
...Iraq has not verifi-ably accounted for, at a minimum, two tons of anthrax growth media...
...Daschle: "Well, I don't know...
...At that time, of course, President Clinton enjoyed broad-based international support," he said...
...Similarly, Daschle never demanded evidence proving Saddam to be a "very imminent threat," and he never called for "proof to the world" that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction...
...In october, McDermott appeared from Baghdad on ABC's This Week with George Stephanopoulos...
...Why shouldn't the president give more than one justification for his policy...
...I asked Daschle last Wednesday what accounted for his change of position...
...The same day, Daschle spoke to a roomful of journalists at the National Press Club...
...No serious person believes this...
...First they said it was al Qaeda, then they said it was weapons of mass destruction...
...There's no ' reason to talk unless he's willing to acknowledge and commit to that realization...
...Iraq repeatedly made false declarations about the weapons that it had left in its possession after the Gulf War...
...There is no mention of Iraqi efforts to procure uranium from abroad...
...As Washington Post congressional reporter Jim VandeHei wrote Thursday, "In recent days, Daschle has accused the president of essentially lying to the American people...
...By suggesting that Saddam may not currently possess weapons of mass destruction, Daschle implicitly accepts a series of bizarre assumptions: (1) that Saddam Hussein unilaterally disarmed at some point between 1998 and 2002, the four-year gap between U.N...
...Senator Daschle, is there any sentiment in the Senate to take up Saddam's invitation to go over and have a chat...
...A survey released last week by James Carville's Democracy Corps found that respondents trust Republicans over Democrats to keep Americans safe by 47 percent to 16 percent...
...We don't have any concrete evidence that he has not," Daschle replied...
...He was asked about a rather outrageous claim he made before he left, that "the president of the United States will lie to the American people in order to get us into this war...
...If hawkish Democrats are worried by Daschle's approach to policy, they are likely to be dismayed by his more personal attacks...
...There is no information about Iraq's mobile biological weapon production facilities...
...Iraq's declaration fails to account for its manufacture of missile fuel for ballistic missiles Iraq claims it does not have...
...Resolution 1441...
...That's a high bar...
...They were also absent from Iraq's "full, final and complete" declaration of its weapons submitted to the U.N...
...Tom Daschle said nothing in protest...
...Period" The bottom line...
...Neither did he require the president to go to the U.N...
...And we know Saddam Hussein is committed to one day possessing nuclear weapons...
...photographs of offensive missiles in Cuba...
...In an appearance on CBS's Face the Nation on January 26, Daschle was asked eight questions about Iraq...
...Daschle, for one, was convinced...
...When UNSCOM would then uncover evidence that gave the lie to those declarations, Iraq would simply amend the reports...
...Now they're going back and saying it's al Qaeda again...
...The similarities are striking...
...You know, you can send congressmen or cruise missiles, I suppose...
...And already, polls show a chasm between Republicans Stephen F. Hayes is a staff writer at THE WEEKLY STANDARD...
...But he has to agree that there will be compliance with international law i and the agreements that he signed I in 1991...
...We've had many efforts...
...Daschle didn't insist that the Clinton administration obtain congressional approval...
Vol. 8 • February 2003 • No. 21
