Press Conference with REP. Peter Defazio (D-OR); REP. Lloyd Doggett (D-TX); REP. Sam Farr (D-CA); REP. Maurice Hinchey (D-NY); REP. Barbara Lee (D-CA)

Interview

PRESS CONFERENCE WITH REP. PETER DEFAZIO (D-OR); REP. LLOYD DOGGETT (D-TX); REP. SAM FARR (D-CA); REP. MAURICE HINCHEY (D-NY); REP. BARBARA LEE (D-CA); REP. JIM MCDERMOTT (D-WA)
SUBJECT: MILITARY OPTIONS AGAINST IRAN

REP. FARR: Good morning. My name is Sam Farr. I'm a Democrat from the 17th Congressional District in California.

And I'm here with my colleagues in Congress today to expose the fact that Congress is very, very concerned, very angry with this administration's saber rattling over Iran. And I think the American public doesn't realize how concerned we are and how many measures -- over a dozen measures have been introduced in the House and in the Senate to do something about it. And today we're going to chat about what those measures are about and suggest some solutions to a road in Iran that is other than the administration's. We recently read and seen concerns where they actually have had strategic planning of air attacks in Iran and what it would take, how long it would last, and it seems to me that it's Iraq all over again. This is -- lessons learned should be lessons that -- not to make that mistake again.

And so the -- one of the leaders of this effort is Peter DeFazio from Oregon. He's been a former state legislator, county supervisor and has been very involved in trying to bring to the floor not only his resolution but also some letters that he's circulating among committee chairs. And others members I'll introduce as we go along.

REP. DEFAZIO: Thanks, Sam, and thanks for your concerned leadership on the issue.

This -- the seeds of this go way back to 9/11. A little history: most people don't recall, but the original 9/11 resolution, proposed by the president when we, in fact -- we were acting for a while in bipartisan fashion, would have given them authority, basically, to attack anybody anywhere any time for any reason the president saw fit.

We substantially -- and I played a key role in this in Democratic Caucus -- narrowed that down to those who were involved in the attacks on 9/11, those who aided, abetted, sheltered or were involved in the attacks. So it's clear even at that point we were concerned at the president expanding beyond a war in Afghanistan. Obviously, later came the resolution on Iraq -- again, limited to Iraq.

But the concern is -- and I have with me a letter -- I mean, Alberto Gonzales may be gone, but his bad works live on -- dated April 18th, 2002, where in response to a letter I and a number of other members of Congress sent to the president in December '01 -- quite timely -- responded that basically, the president has broad constitutional authority as commander in chief and is the sole organ of the federal government in foreign affairs to deploy the armed forces of the United States. It goes on down below to say that they don't believe they need congressional authorization, and if they did need it to attack Iran, they feel they already have it through the resolution on Afghanistan or the resolution on Iraq. That's not true.

It's an open secret that Dick Cheney is agitating for a preemptive attack on Iran. It would be disastrous for the United States, disastrous for the region, disastrous for our armed forces in Iraq and would set us back even further than this misadventure has.

My attempt is for Congress to exert its constitutional authority, to make it clear to the president -- there's a resolution pending in the Senate, I have one in the House, as do a number of others, to just restate the Constitution of the United States and the war powers of the United States Congress and make clear to this president that he cannot have a discretionary war in Iran without the consent of the United States Congress.

Both he and his father ultimately grudgingly recognized that, to have the first and the second wars in Iraq, and we need to continue to reinforce it, to encourage those in the administration who are holding out against Dick Cheney, who wants to rush to a disastrous war. So I'm hopeful that today and from now forward, that our leaders will see fit to push this issue as much as we're pushing the Iraq issue, to try and prevent another disaster.

REP. FARR: Jim McDermott is a leading member of the Ways and Means Committee and certainly an outspoken advocate, having traveled to the Middle East, as you recall, and got criticized for it, except at his home he got praise for it. He's a medical doctor. He understands the issues of human rights and the sanity of diplomatic relations and has been organizing off campus here dinners with retired members of the intelligence agencies and others so that we can stay well-informed on the issues of Iran.

REP. MCDERMOTT: Thank you very much, Sam.

We are nowhere further than we were in September of 2002, when I went to Iraq and said the president would lie to get us into Iraq. Now we're back at the same -- we're running the same film all over again. If you look in today's news, the U.N. report on Iran comes out and says that they are not going toward a bomb, they're controlling, they know what's happening; and immediately the American government blows it off and says it means nothing, which is exactly what they did to Hans Blix in 2002. They are beating the drums for war.

Now, the thing that did not happen in 2002 and '3 was that the Congress did not sit down and look at what all the options were.

We under the Constitution have the right to declare war, to send troops into battle, not the president. We are the ones. The Constitution in Article One gives us the power. That means we have to look at what the options are.

Now, when we were told, they're going to go over there and they're going to throw flowers in front of us and run in and hug us and welcome us as the liberators, and their oil revenues are going to pay for the war, we were given a load of baloney. The time has come for us to run a wargame in the Congress, just like they do in the Defense Department or in the think tanks around this city, in which we sit down and look at all the options.

If we had been presented the option of what we have in Iraq today, how many members do you think in Congress would have said, yeah, that sounds like a good idea; let's go for it; let's spend $600 billion; let's lose 4,000 people; let's destroy our Army; let's do all these things, demoralize our Army. Would we have done that if we had sat and looked at the options?

And that's why I'm proposing that sometime early in January, we ought to have a wargame. There are plenty of retired intelligence people who we've had dinner with, as Sam says, who can come and allow us to go through the process of looking at the options of what would take us in to Iran. What really would it be? Would it be a Gulf of Tonkin kind of event? What would it be? How do you think they're going to get us in there?

Well, then the next question is, what would our response be? And what could we do? And you have the other parties there telling what they might do. What do you think Iran's going to do?

This is not Iraq. It's not 26 million people that have been under severe U.S. sanctions for 10 years. This is a country of 70 million people with enormous ability to respond worldwide. And if we want to turn them loose and give them justification for coming after us, we better understand what the options really are, and how we pick up the pieces after that. And that's why we're here.

In 2002, we had a press conference just like this on the steps of the Cannon Building. Because people said, well, the Democrats aren't doing anything; they're just sitting back and letting the -- we are not. You've heard Peter say. You've heard -- there are a number of members here who have tried to do things and have been just brushed back by this administration. And I think a public wargame, done in front of television, with the press sitting there and watching us consider the options, would be a powerful tool for the American people in a democracy to understand what their government is doing.

REP. FARR: Well, thank you very much, Jim.

Lloyd Doggett is a former supreme court -- member of the Texas Supreme Court, a lawyer, started a human rights commission in Texas. He's been a very, very active member in Congress on human rights and these issues, extremely well informed, intelligent member, and has been leading the effort to bring some sunlight to the fact that Congress is not just letting the president's sword-rattling go without response.

REP. DOGGETT: Thank you, Sam, and thanks for your leadership on this critical issue.

I think that increasingly and unfortunately we realize that Dick Cheney's itchy trigger finger is one of the greatest dangers to the securities of our families. Our colleague John Tierney has had a series of subcommittee hearings about Iran with a number of experts saying, as recently as this month, that the danger of our becoming involved in a war with Iran is about 50-50 in terms of the odds.

And that's why it's so essential for members of Congress to not yield and to continue to seek every avenue possible to express our concern and our resistance to the use of armed conflict to resolve what are some legitimate differences with the government of Iran and a president who is his country's own worst enemy in Iran, but where violence is not going to yield us an acceptable result.

Ironically, Iran, Iranian families represent the one country in the entire world that really say, as a result of George Bush's policies, they're more secure today than they were before war with Iraq began. They had a significant enemy weakened by the war in Iraq. They were placed in a much stronger position. Many of the things that have happened in Iran have been, I think, direct consequences of the failed Bush policies in Iraq. We also continue to provide foreign aid to Iran in the form of the price of oil, a gift that keeps on giving to the Iranian economy, despite its many other problems.

Today we really are an expression of the concern that we are hearing from our constituents, who sometimes ask, I expect, each of you as they have me, "What can we do to stop Dick Cheney from embarking on war in Iran?" We realize there are limitations on what we can do, and so we're looking for every avenue, creative -- like the one just suggested -- resolutions, hearings, amendments that might be offered, to try to limit this administration. But as much as anything else, what we're doing today and throughout this effort is to educate the American people and to educate our colleagues here in Congress that there is a real danger here, and that only by forceful presentation of alternatives do we have hope of preventing Mr. Cheney from accomplishing his very dangerous goals.

Thank you.

REP. FARR: Distinguished member from California, who served in the California State Assembly and California State Senate and has been without a doubt the most outspoken voice in power on "Give peace a chance," Barbara Lee.

REP. LEE: Thank you very much, Congressman Farr.

And let me thank you for your leadership and all of the members here, who are coming together once again to beat the drum so that the American people can understand and know what is exactly going on here over at the White House. We're concerned that the drumbeat to war against Iran is increasingly daily and is strikingly similar to the same drumbeat that we heard that led up to the invasion of Iraq, nearly five years ago.

Now, let me remind you what the president said a couple of weeks ago. He said, "If you're interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing them, Iran, from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon." That, to me, is a very dangerous but yet very revealing statement by the president. Many of us have worked -- and you heard earlier some of the strategies that we're working on to try to stop this administration for -- using force against Iran as a first strike.

I want to mention the resolution that I introduced, H.R. 770, the Iran Nuclear Nonproliferation Act legislation, which will ensure that we don't pursue another calamitous path. The bill states, one, that there should be no preconditions to engaging Iran in diplomatic dialogue. It makes it United States policy not to enter into a preemptive war with Iran in the absence of an imminent threat, in accordance with international law. And also, very importantly, it prohibits the use of funds for carrying out covert or overt military action to cause regime change in Iran.

Every step of the way, we're going to try to make sure that we have some language similar to this, similar to Congressman DeFazio and others' resolutions in many of these bills.

We tried, as you remember, in the previous appropriations bill that came forward. That did not work, but that does not mean that we're going to stop.

This is a very dangerous moment. I believe it's a very defining moment. And we all tried, before the authorization to use force against Iraq, to stop it. Many here voted for my resolution -- I think we received 72 votes -- that said if we believe that there are weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, then for heaven's sake, let the U.N. complete their inspections process. You know, don't do anything until we know for sure that there are no weapons of mass destruction. Well, of course that resolution, as I said, only got 72 votes. But we're going to keep trying. This time maybe more members will believe us. And so we're going to move forward. We must be vigilant.

And I want to commend all of the members here today and others who are very courageous in taking on this administration, because this is a very dangerous move that they're making. It is, in our estimation, one of Cheney's strategies. We remember the "axis of evil" speech, and we see this as part of the agenda that this White House came in from day one with.

Thank you very much.

REP. FARR: Speaking of being very bold, you might have noticed that General John Abizaid, who was the commander of CENTCOM, of the Central -- of the Middle East, up until he was just recently replaced by Admiral Fallon, has recently stated that in his experience, we could live with a nuclear Iran. I mean, here is a leading military official who has suggested that perhaps we ought to, as members have all suggested, at least open up all the issues. Iran certainly has weapons of -- chemical weapons, and they haven't fallen into the wrong hands. I mean, there are -- or other kinds of weapons that haven't fallen into the wrong hands.

It's not to say that everybody isn't concerned about what's going on in Iran, but it's to say that we ought to look before we leap.

And one of the persons that's the new, fresh voice here in Congress that is reminding some of the old senior members in this senior institution that we ought to look before we leap is a wonderful creative and outspoken lawyer from Vermont, Peter Welch.

REP. PETER WELCH (D-VT): Thank you very much, Sam. It's a pleasure to be here.

You know, I'm one of the new members of Congress, and we arrived a year ago, and we were watching, from our various places where we lived or worked, the spectacle of a rush to war led by a president. And all our presidents have great power. Most of them have good judgment. This president has power and no judgment. And we watched with horror, really, as the president led this country to a war that we should not be in and then mismanaged the war from the start. We took inspiration from many of the people who are here in standing up.

But there was a second issue. We began to see Congress relinquishing its Article I powers. And the new members of the congressional Democratic majority have been increasingly concerned about Congress giving up the fundamental responsibility it has to protect the interest of the people of this country. And John Yarmuth, a new member of Congress, started an Article I agenda, and it's really about Congress accepting some significant responsibility for the foreign policy of this country.

So we here today, all of us, acknowledge that Congress must act in order to protect the national security of this country.

And if we have a president who has a vice president with a hair- trigger finger and whose judgment President Bush has been demonstrated over and over again to be shoot first and negotiate second, we in Congress have to insist that the fundamental responsibility given to us in the Constitution to be the deciders as to whether this country will commit its resources and its young men and women to a war will be decided by the people who elected us across the nation. And I fully endorse the leadership of my senior colleagues and their efforts to make certain that there is no act of war in Iran or anywhere else for that matter without explicit congressional authority.

So I thank you one and all.

REP. FARR: I thank all the members for coming. There's a broad array, as you can see, from one coat to the other and with all kinds of varied backgrounds and experiences; myself -- before coming here, being a Peace Corps volunteer in Latin America and bringing an understanding of what it's like to live with other cultures and other languages and know that we need to understand those before we unilaterally attack them.

Peace is a possibility, and the saber rattling that's going on in the White House has no support anywhere else in the world. Our allies in Europe have been very, very critical of it. Our military's been cautionary, critical of it. It's not helping the situation. It's not providing an atmosphere in which dialogue can be created. We think we can do that here in the House and in the Senate by committee hearings, by actions, as Congressman McDermott has talked about, by letters. We even have an effort going on here in Congress, bipartisan effort, initiated by Republicans who want to do interparliamentary exchanges with the Iranian parliament; the ability to have -- begin a Congress- to-Congress dialogue around this country. We left up -- we've left so much of the actions to just the administrative side and failed to recognize that each of these countries have elected governments who've also served as parliamentarians, and we will now open up that role that is parliamentarian. We need to have dialogue with other parliamentarians.

So I thank members for coming and getting some light to this issue. I've passed out -- hopefully you all have a list of all the actions taken in the House and in the Senate, bills that are -- and resolutions that have been introduced. And we'd be glad to respond to any questions you might have.

Q (Off mike) -- when you say that Congress is -- or certain members are talking about having conversations with the Iranian -- (off mike) -- do you think the Iranians -- Congress would accept that, and where would you do this -- (off mike)?

REP. FARR: Well, I think under the new leadership of Nancy Pelosi it certainly has formed a House democracy committee commission. It operates like another committee. Other than hearings, it actually works with parliamentarians in other countries. I'm on that committee. We've been traveling to and inviting parliamentarians from other countries to be here. This is a whole new avenue that I think has great possibilities for us to be talking to our counterparts. When we normally visit countries, all we do is talk to the president and to the Cabinet members of the president, not with the people who create the law and provide the checks and balances for that government.

So I -- this is a relatively new initiative, but we've actually got an institution in the House to do that. And I might add, you might want to talk to Congressman Gilcrest who's really been a leader in providing this effort. He couldn't be here this morning, but he was very, very supportive of what we were doing.

Q But I mean have you actually talked to the Iranians -- I mean, have you heard from them saying --

REP. FARR (?): He wrote a letter --

REP. : Yes.

REP. FARR (?): He wrote a letter to them. He's gotten a response, and we're now in the process of putting together a response to that.

Q Okay.

REP. : Let me just add a word about that, Sam. The speaker of the Iranian Parliament has made some outrageous statements, just like the president. But, you know, going back to the dates of our initial contact with the Chinese, they made some pretty outrageous statements too, and we need to look beyond, look through and underneath the rhetoric, and also to recognize that while I'm sure the Iranians are unsure who's making the decisions, sometimes within our government it is even more difficult to pierce the rhetoric and determine who's really making the decisions there.

So it may be that the parliamentarians in the Iranian Parliament -- finding those with whom we can talk will be difficult, but it's worth an effort. It's just another avenue through which we might engage in dialogue and reduce the chance that there will be some provocation by the Iranians that would be used as a justification for a war with Iran.

Q May I follow up just --

REP. : Sure.

Q Now, has the State Department -- I mean, what do they say about this? Have they said --

REP. : Congressman Gilchrest initiated this, but there's no reason that there isn't the opportunity to talk in third countries with folks and discuss our differences, of which there are many, and discuss what will hopefully be some commonality of a desire to avoid violence as the way of resolving those differences.

REP. FARR: Yes?

Q I'm sure you've checked your e-mails this morning. There seem to be two -- (off mike) -- coming out of Israel from yesterday and today. One is today's -- (off mike) -- trying to play down a report that Israel is, as (the lawyers said ?), quietly preparing for the possibility of a nuclear-armed Iran -- (off mike). What's your reaction to that specific report? I don't know if you've seen that one. But why would Israel -- why do you think Israel -- (off mike) -- backing away from a -- (off mike) -- from a hardline position on this possibility?

REP. : One of the things that is becoming clear, when we talk to the retired intelligence people, they say Cheney is no longer running the foreign policy of this country; Mr. Gates and others -- and Admiral Fallon and others are now stepping in, and Rumsfeld is gone. And so there is an understanding by rational minds in this government that there is an alternative to a preemptive strike on Iran; and that is, figuring out how to lie with whatever's going on. And I think that the Israelis are recognizing that that is a possibility that they ought to think about.

That's why we need to look at all the options. The options are not do nothing or strike Iran from 30,000 feet with massive bombing. There is an alternative to that. And that's really, I think, what they're preparing for.

Q Does anyone else have a reaction to that report?

REP. FARR: Go ahead -- (name inaudible).

REP. : Well, you know, look, the Bush administration came in and wouldn't do anything Clinton, so they ended negotiations with North Korea. After we got into trouble and got overstretched in Iraq, they thought, well, we can't afford to have another front out there, and they entered into meaningful negotiations with North Korea, which are now yielding fruit in terms of limitations on the further reduction of nuclear weapons in North Korea.

They will still have a few nuclear weapons, they will be contained, and we're going to live with that through agreements negotiated by the Bush administration. They're even being attacked by Bolton, their former -- you know, one of the chief architects of the Iraq war, and I don't know how to describe him with the proper adjective.

But anyway, if that could be done there, we're dealing now with a country that doesn't even -- isn't even close to having a nuclear weapon. And the key thing in what -- I think it was Barb read or someone read, was the word "knowledge." We're going to attack them if they have the knowledge? You can get the knowledge on the Internet on how to build a nuclear weapon. We're going to be pretty busy if we go after everybody in the world who has the knowledge.

So the question is, can we curtail their program? Can we -- first off, it's not a given they're going to have nuclear weapons. Could we negotiate with them in a way that could preclude that? That, you know, we don't have to concede the point of them going forward to nuclear weapons. And if they did get nuclear weapons, there are certainly ways to make clear that that should be very constrained and that we're going to be watching and our allies are going to be watching and there would be a massive and devastating response should they ever, you know, hand those weapons over to someone else or misappropriate them or use them.

REP. FARR: One more question?

Q I just happen to have with me the report of the IAEA which came out yesterday. And it was referenced earlier and I just wanted to read very briefly -- (off mike) -- for a response to the note that contrary to the decisions of the Security Council, Iran has not suspended its enrichment-related activities, having continued the operation of the fuel enrichment plant. and Iran has also continued the construction of the IR-40 and operation of the heavy-water production plant.

But to pose my question: If the IAEA is reporting that the Iranians have not complied with the U.N. Security Council resolutions, doesn't that somewhat concern you? And does it also, on the other hand, sort of reflect and seem similar to the situation we were before we went into Iraq, where we had the similar U.N. Security Council resolution lack-of-knowledge situation?

REP. FARR: We stated at the offset that we're all concerned. This isn't a lack of concern. This is an approach that wasn't done in Iraq and we made -- we don't want to make the mistakes that we made in Iraq. And I think that is what you're hearing, and you're hearing it at this time from people who have had military experience in the Middle East, that there are alternatives.

And, you know, just to show you how little we've even tried to exhaust it, we have one of the largest out-of-Iran populations living in the United States, a lot of them living in California. We have over a dozen Iranian foundations and other kinds that are doing programming into Iran and doing other things. The suggestion of Congress a couple years back in the appropriations bill was that we assist these organizations. This administration has done nothing to do that.

So we're not even using the tools that are in our toolbox to begin the kind of dialogue that I think the American people are asking for and are very worried about. This Iran issue comes up in every member's town hall meetings. We -- our allies around the world have told us we would be absolutely stupid to unilaterally bomb Iran, because of the consequences that Jim McDermott talked about.

So I think that what you're hearing is that we are asking for the alternative diplomatic roads to be opened, to use the U.N. Barbara Lee talked about the fact that her bill -- and people forget that there were three votes the night we went in -- that we voted to support the administration. And I think Congress -- by the way, the support we gave them was conditioned far greater than what they'd asked for. But the first vote that night was, rather than unilaterally invading Iran -- Iraq, let's stick with our partners in the U.N., since we have inspectors on the ground.

And let's let this inspection effort and this United Nations effort proceed before we unilaterally abandon them. And remember, we required Colin Powell to go before the U.N. and make his pitch. And obviously he didn't get any -- he didn't sell it.

And that is what we're saying. Let's use the, if you will -- let's begin much more dialogue in Congress and in the global community. And certainly yes, you can -- we've supported U.N. sanctions, but don't abandon those to have an attack.

REP. LEE: Yeah, and let me just say how important it is to read the entire report, which we have to, so that we can make sure that a spin isn't provided that becomes the report. Because here's -- and let me just read a quote from the report. "The agency has been able to verify the non-diversion of declared nuclear material in Iran. Iran has provided the agency with access to declared material, and has provided the required material accountancy reports in connection with declared nuclear material and activities. Iran has provided sufficient access to individuals, and has responded in a timely manner and provided clarification and amplification on issues raised in the context of the work plant."

I think what's important -- again the entire report is important to read, but also that we recognize the IAEA, the United Nations and other bodies need to be allowed to continue with their work. And that's what did not happen with Iraq. And what has happened with Iraq was that that work was halted based on the bombing and the invasion, and that we've lost nearly 4,000 of our young men and women, and 600,000-plus Iraqi civilians.

MR. : I would just add that I think the findings to which you refer are of concern. Personally I'd be concerned about a nuclear Iran. But I was also concerned about a nuclear North Korea, and by the findings concerning North Korea.

The administration belatedly, unfortunately at great cost, finally got around to changing its North Korea policy. What we're about is trying to get it to change its Iranian policy. And talking with the Iranians, indicating that we're not interested in regime change -- we're interested in peace -- that any regime change which we would like to see as individuals should be accomplished by the Iranian people and not by external forces, may be a big role in eventually seeing a non-nuclear Iran. Thank you very much.

MR. : I would just say one thing about this Iran -- the report from the IAEA.

I had dinner with Hans Blix, and they were in the process in Iraq of going all the way. And the decision was made in early 2003 to end that. And they got out because they knew that the Americans were going to begin bombing. They never were allowed to finish proving what ultimately turned out to be true, that in fact there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. They were prevented from doing that.

The same thing is going on here. The article today in the Asia Times says -- the title is, "U.S. Dismisses Nuclear Report." Then they start quoting from the report, and it is clear that there is evidence that they are in fact complying with the U.N. requirements. We have an administration that has some people in it who want to go to war, and we want to make it as hard as possible for them to do that by having as many Americans know what's really going on here.

MR. : Thank you. The list of all of these bills are before you.

Source