In October 2002 the Senate debated whether to authorize President Bush to use force to disarm Saddam and enforce UN resolutions regarding disarmament. With the Iraq war being such an important issue in the upcoming election and John Kerry being the presumptive Democrat candidate for president I thought it might be good to back through the Congressional Record and actually see what he thought back then and not just go by what he now says he thought back then.

First off, for those who say President Bush and Secretary of State Colin Powell misled the country as to the threat posed by Saddam Hussein, let's look at what John Kerry believed about the threat posed by Saddam.

[Saddam] has continually failed to meet the obligations imposed by the international community on Iraq at the end of the Persian Gulf the Iraqi regime provide credible proof war to declare and destroy its weapons of mass destruction and delivery systems and to forego the development of nuclear weapons. during the 7 years of weapons inspections, the Iraqi regime repeatedly frustrated the work of the UNSCOM--Special Commission--inspectors, culminating in 1998 in their ouster. Even during the period of inspections, Iraq never fully accounted for major gaps and inconsistencies in declarations provided to the inspectors of its pre-gulf war WMD programs, nor did the Iraqi regime provide credible proof that it had completely destroyed its weapons stockpiles and production infrastructure.

It is clear that in the 4 years since the UNSCOM inspectors were forced out, Saddam Hussein has continued his quest for weapons of mass destruction. According to intelligence, Iraq has chemical and biological weapons as well as missiles with ranges in excess of the 150 kilometer restriction imposed by the United Nations in the ceasefire resolution. Although Iraq's chemical weapons capability was reduced during the UNSCOM inspections, Iraq has maintained its chemical weapons effort over the last 4 years. Evidence suggests that it has begun renewed production of chemical warfare agents, probably including mustard gas, sarin, cyclosarin, and VX. Intelligence reports show that Iraq has invested more heavily in its biological weapons programs over the 4 years, with the result that all key aspects of this program--R&D, production and weaponization--are active. Most elements of the program are larger and more advanced than they were before the gulf war. Iraq has some lethal and incapacitating agents and is capable of quickly producing and weaponizing a variety of such agents, including anthrax, for delivery on a range of vehicles such as bombs, missiles, aerial sprayers, and covert operatives which could bring them to the United States homeland. Since inspectors left, the Iraqi regime has energized its missile program, probably now consisting of a few dozen Scud-type missiles with ranges of 650 to 900 kilometers that could hit Israel, Saudi Arabia and other U.S. allies in the region. In addition, Iraq is developing unmanned aerial vehicles UAVs, capable of delivering chemical and biological warfare agents, which could threaten Iraq's neighbors as well as American forces in the Persian Gulf.

Prior to the gulf war, Iraq had an advance nuclear weapons development program. Although UNSCOM and IAEA International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors learned much about Iraq's efforts in this area, Iraq has failed to provide complete information on all aspects of its program. Iraq has maintained its nuclear scientists and technicians as well as sufficient dual-use manufacturing capability to support a reconstituted nuclear weapons program. Iraqi defectors who once worked for Iraq's nuclear weapons establishment have reportedly told American officials that acquiring nuclear weapons is a top priority for Saddam Hussein's regime.

According to the CIA's report, all U.S. intelligence experts agree that Iraq is seeking nuclear weapons. There is little question that Saddam Hussein wants to develop nuclear weapons. The more difficult question to answer is when Iraq could actually achieve this goal. That depends on is its ability to acquire weapons-grade fissile material. If Iraq could acquire this material from abroad, the CIA estimates that it could have a nuclear weapon within 1 year.

Absent a foreign supplier, it might be longer. There is no question that Saddam Hussein represents a threat.
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And while the administration has failed to provide any direct link between Iraq and the events of September 11, can we afford to ignore the possibility that Saddam Hussein might accidentally, as well as purposely, allow those weapons to slide off to one group or other in a region where weapons are the currency of trade? How do we leave that to chance?
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The Iraqi regime's record over the decade leaves little doubt that Saddam Hussein wants to retain his arsenal of weapons of mass destruction and, obviously, as we have said, grow it. These weapons represent an unacceptable threat.

--Congressional Record, October 9, 2002 (S10172)(S10173)

Let me just pull out a couple sentences there.

"According to the CIA's report, all U.S. intelligence experts agree that Iraq is seeking nuclear weapons."

This first sentence would seem to contradict the current memes that President Bush cherry-picked data and misled Congress and the people. John Kerry's belief that Saddam had WMD and was seeking nuclear weapons didn't come in some White House briefing or the like. It was a CIA report. And with "all U.S. intelligence experts agree" it hardly seems that the CIA reports were brimming with doubt about nuclear weapons as we've been led to believe since then.

And the sentence that summarizes his stance then:

"There is no question that Saddam Hussein represents a threat."

Now tell me, does this sound like a man presented with vague, cherry-picked data that might or might not prove that Saddam was dangerous?

He lays out the same basic ideas that Colin Powell brought to the UN and yet somehow the Bush administration, that believes the same thing as Kerry, is lying and misleading and cherry-picking.

Now let’s move on to what Senator Kerry thought he was voting for when he voted for the authorization to use force. He has since said "I voted to threaten the use of force to make Saddam Hussein comply with the resolutions of the United Nations."

I want to underscore that this administration began this debate with a resolution that granted exceedingly broad authority to the President to use force. I regret that some in the Congress rushed so quickly to support it. I would have opposed it. It gave the President the authority to use force not only to enforce all of the U.N. resolutions as a cause of war, but also to produce regime change in Iraq, and to restore international peace and security in the Persian Gulf region. It made no mention of the President's efforts at the United Nations or the need to build multilateral support for whatever course of action we ultimately would take.

--Congressional Record, October 9, 2002 (S10173)

Here we see that Kerry didn't go into this vote blind. If he voted to authorize more than he thought he did, it certainly wasn't because he just didn't think about the breadth of authorization being discussed.

The revised White House text, which we will vote on, limits the grant of authority to the President to the use of force only with respect to Iraq. It does not empower him to use force throughout the Persian Gulf region. It authorizes the President to use Armed Forces to defend the ``national security'' of the United States--a power most of us believe he already has under the Constitution as Commander in Chief. And it empowers him to enforce all ``relevant'' Security Council resolutions related to Iraq. None of those resolutions or, for that matter, any of the other Security Council resolutions demanding Iraqi compliance with its international obligations, calls for a regime change.

In recent days, the administration has gone further. They are defining what ``relevant'' U.N. Security Council resolutions mean. When Secretary Powell testified before our committee, the Foreign Relations Committee, on September 26, he was asked what specific U.N. Security Council resolutions the United States would go to war to enforce. His response was clear: the resolutions dealing with weapons of mass destruction and the disarmament of Iraq. In fact, when asked about compliance with other U.N. resolutions which do not deal with weapons of mass destruction, the Secretary said:

The President has not linked authority to go to war to any of those elements.
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I would have preferred that the President agree to the approach drafted by Senators Biden and Lugar... It would require the President, before exercising the authority granted in the resolution, to send a determination to Congress that the United States tried to seek a new Security Council resolution or that the threat posed by Iraq's WMD is so great he must act absent a new resolution--a power, incidentally, that the President of the United States always has.

I believe this approach would have provided greater clarity to the American people about the reason for going to war and the specific grant of authority. I think it would have been a better way to do this. But it does not change the bottom line of what we are voting for.

The administration, unwisely, in my view, rejected the Biden-Lugar approach. But, perhaps as a nod to the sponsors, it did agree to a determination requirement on the status of its efforts at the United Nations. That is now embodied in the White House text.
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If the President arbitrarily walks away from this course of action--without good cause or reason--the legitimacy of any subsequent action by the United States against Iraq will be challenged by the American people and the international community. And I would vigorously oppose the President doing so.

When I vote to give the President of the United States the authority to use force, if necessary, to disarm Saddam Hussein, it is because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a threat, and a grave threat, to our security and that of our allies in the Persian Gulf region. I will vote yes because I believe it is the best way to hold Saddam Hussein accountable. And the administration, I believe, is now committed to a recognition that war must be the last option to address this threat, not the first, and that we must act in concert with allies around the globe to make the world's case against Saddam Hussein.

--Congressional Record, October 9, 2002 (S10173) (S10174)

Now the word “threat” appears there 4 times, but always in reference to the threat of Saddam Hussein. Not once does the word “threaten” appear. He makes it clear that he’d oppose the President if he arbitrarily walked away (and let’s keep in mind that when diplomacy did finally end France was threatening to veto any resolution stronger than “we’ll think about war again in 6 months”), but he makes it quite clear that he is voting to give President Bush the authority to use force, not just threaten its use.

The administration must continue its efforts to build support at the United Nations for a new, unfettered, unconditional weapons inspection regime. If we can eliminate the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction through inspections, whenever, wherever, and however we want them, including in palaces--and I am highly skeptical, given the full record, given their past practices, that we can necessarily achieve that--then we have an obligation to try that as the first course of action before we expend American lives in any further effort.

--Congressional Record, October 9, 2002 (S10174)

Now here let’s remember that Iraq did not cooperate fully with inspectors. They haggled over when U2s could fly over and whether they'd destroy missiles. They dragged their feet and were not at all proactive in their disarmament.

It is clear the Senate is about to give the President the authority he has requested sometime in the next days. Whether the President will have to use that authority depends ultimately on Saddam Hussein. Saddam Hussein has a choice: He can continue to defy the international community, or he can fulfill his longstanding obligations to disarm. He is the person who has brought the world to this brink of confrontation.

He is the dictator who can end the stalemate simply by following the terms of the agreement which left him in power.

--Congressional Record, October 9, 2002 (S10175)

Here Kerry was right. Hussein could have ended the whole ordeal if he had proactively disarmed. Instead he offered a little cooperation at first, and then when things started to get serious he offered a little more cooperation. At no point did they fully cooperate and in the end France et al seemed content with this noncompliance. They refused to entertain the thought that there should be any limit at all on the amount of time Saddam would be given to stymie inspectors, leaving President Bush no choice but to walk away when it was evident that the cooperation that was needed to disarm Iraq, both from within Iraq and from the Security Council, would never come.

Senator Kerry can make the argument that President Bush pulled out too soon. (I've made my case as to why holding out longer would have done no good.) He cannot however honestly say that he didn't think Iraq was a threat. He cannot say that President Bush misled him on the threat Iraq posed. He cannot say that he voted to "threaten to use force", he talked only of authorizing the actual use of force, never once even giving the impression that President Bush was only allowed to threaten and would have to come back to Congress to actually be allowed to use it.

He knew at the time that it was a bill authorizing actual force and not just threats and he knew that Iraq posed a threat.

He was right at the time to vote for the resolution. He was right to believe that Iraq posed a threat. Now however it is an election year and suddenly he needs to make President Bush look bad. Now he claims he was lied to by President Bush about the threat Saddam posed. His very own words above disprove that. He knew, just like everybody else that Saddam posed a threat. He said "all U.S. intelligence experts" agreed that Iraq was trying to gain nuclear weapons. They may have been wrong, but if so then the intelligence was wrong. As much as Kerry wants to smear President Bush, intelligence experts providing the President and Congress with wrong information is not the same as the President cherry-picking evidence and lying to and misleading Congress and the American people. Kerry left no doubt. The evidence was "clear", all the experts agreed. It is disgraceful that Kerry is now trying to turn this into some grand scheme and lie from President Bush when he himself was convinced by the same reports, the same evidence.

Today he is trying to weasel out of his record and to deny what he knew. He has been constant in wanting multilateral support (though considering that we had the help and support of at least 34 countries, perhaps what he actually wanted was omnilateral support), but his positions on the use of force authorization and the threat posed by Saddam are pure examples of flip-flopping of the most politically expedient kind. He held certain beliefs. Now that the exact opposite can help him he not only says he believes the opposite but is trying to rewrite history in such a manner as to make people believe he never held his original beliefs at all.