SPEECH BY SENATOR AL GORE Center for National Policy September 29, 1992 One of the most important questions in this campaign involves the judgment of the candidates on foreign policy. The American people know the world is full of unexpected surprises and dangers -- and as a result they want to know whether or not a president can handle these uncertainties, recognize unanticipated dangers, and realize when national policy must be changed to reflect new realities. The American people also want to know whether or not they can count on their president to tell them the truth. President Bush, in his handling of our policy toward Iraq, has failed all these tests, and failed them badly. His poor judgment, moral blindness and bungling policies led directly to a war that should never have taken place. And because of his na^Kvet^B and lack of candor, U.S. taxpayers are now stuck with paying the bill for $1.9 billion President Bush gave to Saddam Hussein even though top administration officials were repeatedly told Saddam was using our dollars to buy weapons technology. Bush, of course, believes that the war with Iraq was his finest hour as the organizer and leader of a vast coalition of armed forces, united for the purpose of frustrating the designs of an evil dictator. But the war with Iraq had deep roots, and if George Bush's prosecution of the war is part of his record, so too is his involvement in the diplomacy which led to it, both in the Reagan/Bush era, and far more so, during his presidency when he accelerated foreign aid and the sale of weapons technology to Iraq -- right up until the invasion of Kuwait -- in spite of repeated warnings that anyone with common sense would have had no difficulty understanding. The path leading us to that war, and the path which the President has followed after, are deeply shadowed in profound error, in duplicity, and in amoral disregard for our most basic values as a nation. There is also substantial evidence that his administration intentionally falsified export records, and reports to Congress -- and in the process apparently violated a number of laws intended to prevent such horrendous mistakes. Nineteen months ago, President Bush called Saddam Hussein a new Hitler who had to be stopped at all costs. Yet today, that same tyrant remains firmly in power, resisting by every means the will of the international community. No wonder so many Americans ask themselves whether our victory over Saddam will ultimately prove an illusion. The conduct of the war will remain a proud memory for all Americans. But the full history must also include events before and after the war. That detailed record requires a little more time and effort to understand. And if we really want to judge President Bush's stewardship of policy, then we had better pay attention to that detailed record, which provides a deeply disturbing look at a blatant disregard for brutal terrorism, a dangerous blindness to the murderous ambitions of a despot, and what certainly appears to be an ongoing effort to hide the facts from the American people whose tax dollars paid for this policy and whose sons and daughters risked and lost their lives in its pursuit. George Bush wants the American people to see him as the hero who put out a raging fire. But new evidence now shows that he is the one who set the fire. He not only struck the match, he poured gasoline on the flames. So give him credit for calling in the fire department, but understand who started the blaze. Let me begin by providing a basic historical frame of reference: In September of 1980, Iraq invaded Iran. Iraq was the odds-on favorite to win the war in short order. However, by May 1982, Iraq was clearly in trouble. It had lost a major battle with Iran. Our policy-makers began to imagine Iran under a radical Islamic government emerging as the dominant regional power: a nightmare. I believe that is why, in February 1982, President Reagan took Iraq off the list of states that sponsored terrorism. He did this not because Iraq had gone straight and given up terrorism, but because he wanted to help Iraq while there was time. By taking Iraq's name off the list, President Reagan opened the way for Iraq to receive US credits through subsidized agricultural loan guarantees and Export-Import Bank credits. Reagan's decision also removed certain kinds of export controls intended to block the transfer of US technology to countries on the official terrorism list. In other words, for strategic reasons, the Reagan/Bush Administration would overlook virtually any unpleasant reality in Iraq, and apparently subvert US laws in order to prop up Saddam Hussein's brutal regime. George Bush claims he was an outsider in another momentous Reagan decision -- to sell arms to Iran in exchange for American hostages. Of course by now, most people find that very hard to believe and the documentary record is closing in on him. Recently, we learned that former Secretary of State George Shultz and former Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger were outraged when they heard then Vice President Bush was disclaiming any knowledge of the Iran arms deal and the fact that the two senior cabinet officers had vigorously opposed it. Notes taken at the time of their telephone conversation about this event have Mr. Weinberger saying that Bush's comments were "terrible" and that, far from being ignorant of developments, Bush had been "on the other side" of the struggle over policy. Just last week, more evidence surfaced showing that Bush is recorded as having attended numerous meetings across a span of three years when White House senior officials debated the plan to sell arms to Iran and then were briefed on the status of the program. He was also present at the meetings in which the trade for arms for American hostages was explicitly discussed. And now two of the briefers have directly challenged the veracity of President Bush's claim that he didn't know arms were being swapped for hostages. Far from being "out of the loop", Bush seems to have been one of the most vigorous and vociferous advocates of the illegal side of the argument. Indeed, his arguments to the contrary are simply no longer credible. His national security advisor was clearly uncomfortable even going so far as to say that Bush's version was "possibly" true. Now, new evidence about his policy toward Iraq directly contradicts President Bush's repeated statements to the American people that he did nothing that helped Saddam's effort to acquire weapons of mass destruction during the months and years preceeding Saddam's invasion of Kuwait. To begin with, George Bush cannot even try to claim ignorance where policy toward Iraq was concerned. Not only was he directly in the loop, he was a principal architect of the policy from its earliest days. For example, in April of 1984, Bush personally lobbied the Ex-Im Bank's chairman--a friend from college days--to disregard the views of his own economists, and extend credits to Iraq. Doubts about Iraq's credit-worthiness were very well-founded. But the overriding issue was whether Iraq could continue to hold on in the war with Iran. That's all that seemed to matter. In pursuit of that objective, the Reagan/Bush Administration would overlook the fact that it was an Iraq-based group that masterminded the assassination attempt against Israel's ambassador to the UK, which occurred in June 1982. This event triggered Israel's invasion of Lebanon--not exactly a minor consequence for US policy. The Reagan/Bush Administration was also prepared to overlook the fact that the terrorist who masterminded the attack on the Achille Lauro and the savage murder of American Leon Klinghoffer fled with Iraqi assistance. Nor did it matter that the team of terrorists who set out to blow up the Rome airport came from Baghdad with suitcase bombs. Iraq not only stayed off the terrorist list no matter what, but in November 1984, full diplomatic relations were established with the country. The US government continued to exert every effort to channel assistance to Saddam Hussein--even with evidence that he was not only promoting terrorism, but was also pursuing a nuclear weapons program. As early as May of 1985, Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard Perle warned about the suspected diversion of US exports of dual-use technology to the Iraqi nuclear weapons program. But Bush ensured that the flow of technology continued. In March 1987, Bush again took a prominent role: when Iraq's ambassador complained that our Defense Department was taking too long and being too cautious about export licenses for high tech items, Bush apparently agreed with him that the Defense Department was being capricious and had to get with the program. There might have been a moment's pause for reflection when Iraqi aircraft intentionally attacked the USS Stark in May 1987, killing 37 sailors -- but the Administration smoothed it over very fast. This was the spring when the Ex-Im Bank staff resisted another $200 million loan for Iraq, but again the loan was granted after Bush again personally intervened to stress its political importance. The loan went through in May, just two days before the attack on the Stark. Now, let me make a point about foreign policy and the real world. The actual conduct of foreign policy often bears as much resemblance to academic theory as the conduct of domestic politics bears to a civics course. If we have to deal with someone bad in order to handle someone even worse, then for heaven's sake we should at least be ready to re-evaluate that relationship the moment it has outlived its value to the United States. In other words, whatever the arguments for temporarily supporting Saddam Hussein as a barrier separating Saudi Arabia's oil from Iran's militant fundamentalists, Bush deserves heavy blame for intentionally concealing from the American people the clear nature of Saddam Hussein and his regime, for convincing himself that friendly relations with such a monster were possible, and for persisting in this effort far, far beyond the point of folly. Throughout this period, Saddam's atrocities continued. In March 1988, Saddam Hussein used poison gas on the Kurdish town of Halabja, brutally murdering some five thousand innocent men, women and children. None of us can ever forget the pictures of their bodies--of parents trying to shield their infants even in death -- that were in our news media. The Iran-Iraq War ended in August of 1988. Iraq had not prevailed, but neither had it been defeated. As a result, you would think that the Administration would give our policies a second look to see if they should be altered. But the Reagan/Bush Administration never hesitated even when the news became much, much worse. Within days of the end of the Iran-Iraq War, Saddam Hussein--seeing that he had gotten away with using poison gas against the Kurds previously--launched additional major gas attacks on them. The war was over, and he was determined to settle accounts. Saddam's attacks created, in addition to the wave of deaths, a flight of about a half million Kurdish refugees. The effect of these events on the public and on Congress was electrifying. The outrage and disgust sparked action and ignited an intensification of efforts to pull the plug on US assistance to Saddam Hussein. I myself went to the Senate floor twice demanding tough action. But these efforts were resisted to the bitter end by the Reagan/Bush and Bush/Quayle Administrations. For example, they pulled out all the stops to defeat the Prevention of Genocide Act, after the US Senate had passed it unanimously in September of 1988. Meanwhile, the US Customs Service was reporting that in 1988, it had marked a notable increase in the activity of Iraq's network of procuring agents and front corporations. A concerted effort was underway to obtain missile technology, chemical weapons technology, and biological weapons technology. In January 1989, George Bush was sworn in as President. Based on plentiful evidence, he had reason to know that his ongoing policy regarding Iraq was already malfunctioning. Just last week, we learned of a memorandum written in March, 1989, to Secretary of State Baker, as he prepared to meet with a senior Iraqi official in which the author noted that Iraq continued to cooperate with terrorists, that it was "meddling" in Lebanon, and that it was "working hard at chemical and biological weapons and new missiles." What is especially interesting about this memo is that it notes that in the months preceding this meeting Iraqi oil exports to the US had increased dramatically and on favorable terms. That point raised the question of a quid pro quo sought by the Iraqi officials -- cheap oil in exchange for "freer export licensing procedures for high tech." The memo's drafter notes -- somewhat critically and impatiently -- that export applications were being held up by the Commerce Department, and by the Defense Department, out of concern that the proposed exports could enhance Iraq's military capabilities. These concerns were well-founded. In April 1989, a nuclear proliferation expert from the Department of Energy reported intelligence indicators that Iraq had a crash program underway to build an atomic bomb. In June, the Defense Intelligence Agency reported that Iraq was running a major European network to procure military goods that were not supposed to be sold. In August, the FBI raided the Atlanta Branch of the Italian Banca Nazionale del Lavoro (BNL) and seized evidence of over $4 billion in illegal loans to Iraq, as well as use of about $2 billion of those funds to buy nuclear and other military technologies. And on September 22nd, Assistant Secretary of State John Kelly wrote a memo acknowledging that money coming to Iraq through the Atlanta branch of the BNL did "appear to have been used" to finance acquisition of sensitive military technology. Also in September, the USDA reported kickbacks and possible diversions of US-supplied agricultural funds for military purposes. Most significant of all, in the same month, the CIA reported to Secretary of State James Baker and other top Bush administration officials that Iraq was clandestinely procuring nuclear weapons technology through a global network of front companies. Now, in the midst of this flood of highly alarming information, on October 2, 1989, President Bush signed a document known as NSD-26, which established policy toward Iraq under his Administration. This document is the benchmark for judging George Bush's record for the direction of American policy toward Iraq in the period that would ultimately lead to war. We have only a partial idea of what is in that document, since the version that was finally released to Congress has been heavily censored. But the core statement of purpose and the fundamental assumptions behind it are clear. And so is the incredibly poor judgment of George Bush. NSD-26 mandated the pursuit of improved economic and political ties with Iraq on the assumption that Iraqi behavior could be modified by means of new favors to be granted. Perhaps so, if this were a state not under the complete control of a single man whose ruthlessness was already totally apparent. The text of NSD-26 blindly ignores the evidence already at the Administration's disposal of Iraqi behavior in the past regarding human rights, terrorism, the use of chemical weapons, and the pursuit of advanced weapons of mass destruction. Instead it makes a heroic assumption of good behavior in the future, on the basis of an interesting theory--namely, that Iraq would suddenly and completely change its ways out of a fear of economic and political sanctions. It leaps from the page, that George Bush, both as Vice President and President, had done his utmost to make sure that no such sanctions would ever apply to Saddam Hussein. Consequently, the question is unavoidable: why should Saddam Hussein be concerned about a threat of action in the future from the same man who had resolutely blocked any such action in the past? To the contrary Saddam had every reason to assume that Bush would look the other way -- no matter what he did. In my view, the Bush Administration was acting in a manner directly opposite to what you would expect with all the evidence it had at the time. Saddam Hussein's nature and intentions were perfectly visible. In October of 1989, representatives of the Departments of State and Agriculture met to discuss Iraq's diversion of US agricultural credits into the acquisition of US technology for its nuclear weapons program. Later that same month, however, on October 26th, Assistant Secretary of State Kelly sent Secretary Baker a memo jointly written with the State Department's legal counsel, Abe Sofaer, urging that Baker push an additional $1 billion in agricultural loan guarantees for Iraq, notwithstanding the mushrooming scandal surrounding the diversion of BNL loans by Iraq for nuclear purposes. I will leave to others to debate whether Sofaer's efforts--or those of White House Counsel Boyden Gray's staff--to sound out the intentions of the Atlanta prosecutor constituted a crude form of intervention. My point is that before and after consecrating a policy that tied us hip and thigh to Saddam Hussein, George Bush had all the information he needed to know that he was in deep, deep ... water. But he persisted, although in November the CIA again reported that Baghdad was shopping everywhere for chemical, biological, and nuclear technologies and for ballistic missile technology. And even though the CIA again reported a link between BNL funding and the Iraq nuclear and missile programs, in November the Administration agreed to go ahead with another billion dollars in US taxpayer subsidized loan guarantees to Iraq. In January of 1990, President Bush issued a determination that exempted Iraq from section 512 of the Foreign Operations Appropriations Act of November 1989 prohibiting further loans to Iraq. On grounds of "national security," the President declared that the Act's prohibition would not apply. And yet, this was the season when the RAND Corporation reported that an estimated 1400 terrorists were operating out of Iraq. In February 1990, Saddam Hussein called for the removal of US military forces from the Persian Gulf. And yet, the same month, the Administration actually apologized to Saddam for the content of a Voice of America broadcast criticizing Iraq's human rights record. Coddling tyrants is a hallmark of the Bush foreign policy. March, 1990, brought no improvement, when US and British agents arrested several Iraqis in the act of trying to smuggle nuclear triggering devices into Iraq. In April, Saddam Hussein issued his infamous threat to burn up half of Israel with chemical weapons. Still, Bush toadied up to Saddam. Also in April, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York noted that BNL money was diverted to purchase nuclear triggers in the United States, which had later been seized by British customs. That same month, British Customs also seized pipe sections heading for Iraq, which were determined to have been parts of a super-gun. Similar shipments were seized in Greece, Turkey, Italy, West Germany and Switzerland. Yet, on April 12th, at the personal request of Bush, Senators Bob Dole and Alan Simpson -- the number one and number two Republican leaders in the Senate -- travelled to Baghdad and told Saddam Hussein that President Bush was still ready to veto any sanctions bill that Congress might pass. They added -- again at Bush's personal request -- the comforting news that the author of the offending Voice of America criticism had been fired that same day in an effort to please Saddam. In April and May, Commerce Under Secretary Dennis Kloske attended two meetings at the White House where he recommended that the US tighten restrictions on exports of high technology, but he was overruled, and the flow of technology from the US continued. As a side-note, when Kloske testified about this before the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on International Economic Policy and Trade about a year later, he was fired within forty-eight hours. May arrives, and a terrorist attack on the public beaches of Tel Aviv was launched and thwarted. It was planned by a Palestinian group operating openly in Baghdad. On May 21, the USDA sent up another warning about diversions of funds from US-guaranteed loans. But on June 15th, 1990, Assistant Secretary of State Kelly told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that the Administration still opposed any Congressional sanctions against Iraq. And in July, as Iraqi tanks and soldiers massed on the Kuwaiti border, the Senate tried to pass another sanctions bill against Iraq...and the Administration opposed it. Not only that, but on the eve of the invasion, the Bush/Quayle Administration kept selling Saddam dual- use technology such as sophisticated computers, flight simulators, and equipment to manufacture gun barrels. At that very moment, however, high level officials in the Administration, including Secretary of State James Baker, were finally forced to confront what they had known from the outset of Bush's administration: that Iraq had grossly abused the benefits extended to it by Bush. In July, a memo jointly drafted by four senior officers of the Department of State was sent to Secretary Baker and approved by him. According to this memorandum--the existence of which just came to light a few days ago-- the Administration acknowledged that "Iraq is actively engaged in developing chemical and biological weapons and ballistic missile systems, and may be seeking to develop nuclear weapons as well. Iraq has been attempting to obtain items to support these proliferation activities from US exporters, in some cases successfully." The memorandum concludes that the time had come for the Administration to "move now on Iraq because of its very active proliferation-related procurement efforts" and because "there is a danger that US exporters could become implicated in these efforts." Bear in mind that Saddam Hussein was then only one week away from an act of open aggression that would bring us to war. It had taken this long for an awareness of what was going on for years to be acknowledged within the Administration. Much has been said about the record of our Ambassador to Iraq April Glaspie's famous interview of July 25th with Saddam Hussein. But the Ambassador's servile message was a clear expression of Bush's personal views. Her message was totally in line with US policy as laid down by President Bush in October 1989, and clung to until August 2, 1990, when Iraq invaded, conquered, and annexed Kuwait. Within a month, our sons and daughters were to be sent to risk their lives facing a threat that had been built up through US technology and US tax dollars by our own President, who now summoned them to battle. In answer to this charge, President Bush has explicitly denied that his policies enhanced Saddam Hussein's nuclear, biological and chemical capabilities. He denied this, not only in an official report to Congress in the fall of 1991, but as recently as June 13th and July 1st of this year, when Bush said: "We did not enhance Saddam Hussein's nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons capability." But as I have just mentioned, his own Secretary of State knew differently at least as of July 1990, and the actual record of our exports shows the facts rather differently than the President wants to remember them: * Almost 30% of our non-agricultural exports to Iraq between 1985 and 1990 went to the Iraqi military-industrial complex. * Of these exports, there were 162 items that were licensed for sale despite their potential nuclear applications. * The Administration permitted the sale of powerful computers comparable to those used in our own missile test ranges, despite objections from the Department of Defense. * It allowed shipment of high-tech equipment needed for Iraq's Condor II missile, which was to have been able to deliver a nuclear warhead at a range of more than 600 miles. * It allowed for the export of materials needed for the infamous "supergun" project, intended to have the ability to launch nuclear weapons like artillery shells over hundreds of miles. * Machine tools, lasers and other equipment for the manufacture of rocket casings used in SCUD missiles were sold. When UN inspectors got into Iraq, they found at Saddam Hussein's main nuclear weapons complex a carbide-tipped machine tool factory which had been built with technology and equipment licensed for export by the Bush Administration. * The Administration licensed technology and equipment for fabricating shapes out of glass fiber over the objections of the Department of Defense, which noted that the purchaser was part of the Iraqi military-industrial complex, and that this kind of equipment was needed for a nuclear weapons program. The Administration preferred to blindly accept the importer's ludicrous claim that the equipment would be used to make shower stalls. * Equipment for a "detergent" factory was licensed, yet this same factory was used to make chemical weapons. * 17 licenses for the export of bacterial and fungus cultures to Iraq were granted, even though the CIA specifically linked the Iraqi government agencies involved to "biological warfare support and numerous other military activities." * The UN Special Commission, once it finally got inside Iraq, is reported to have found equipment from eleven American companies in Iraqi missile and chemical weapons plants. It is astounding to look at the list of Iraqi customers approved by the Administration: * The Ministry of Industry and Military Industrialization (known as MIMI), which was headed by a brigadier general who was Saddam Hussein's son-in-law, and which the CIA identified as "controlling Iraq's nuclear network." * The Saddam State Establishment and Salah Al Din, called in an intelligence report "typical of Iraq's arms production facilities." * SAAD 16, identified back in 1986 as a key missile production site, where as much as 40% of the equipment was reported to be US- made. * The Administration even sold Saddam Hussein helicopters for his personal use, equipped with special infra-red guidance and defensive systems. Incredibly, the Bush administration knew all along that the chief purchasing agent for much of this material was the head of an Iraqi weapons complex. "The tentacle of the octopus," as one law enforcement official put it, was a US company called Matrix- Churchill. It was a key player in Saddam Hussein's efforts to acquire nuclear and other weapons technologies. The chairman of this so-called "American" corporation was one Safa al-Habobi, who was simultaneously the Director General of the Iraqi Nassr State Enterprise for Mechanical Industries, well-known by our intelligence agencies as a major Iraqi military-industrial complex where missiles and nuclear weapons equipment were manufactured. There was report after report linking Habobi's firm, Matrix- Churchill, to Iraq's global network of front companies and even back to the Iraqi Ministry of Industry and Military Industrialization (MIMI) and Saddam's son-in-law Hussein Kamal. But the Bush Administration kept issuing licenses. And as for how Iraq paid for all this when it was already far over its head in debt as the result of the war with Iran and Saddam Hussein's economic policies, a large part of the answer is: on credit in the form of loans guaranteed by the Bush/ Quayle Administration. In the fall of 1989, Bush pushed hard to make sure that $1 billion in new loan guarantees were provided to Saddam Hussein. It didn't matter that federal agencies were reporting severe abuses of prior loan guarantees from the United States. In the end, the US taxpayer has been left holding the bag for almost $2 billion of loans to Iraq which will never be repaid. After bailing out the savings and loans, American taxpayers are now being forced by Bush's poor decisions to bail out Saddam. When it came time to confront the consequences of these years of serious mistakes, when it came time to confront Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait with an international coalition united in its resolve and purpose, George Bush, all the way up until the moment the combat ended, displayed fortitude and skill. But the chestnuts he pulled from that fire were his own. His policies nurtured Saddam Hussein. He was deaf to information that to any other ear was a fire-bell in the night, ringing clearly that our policies were disastrously wrong. And incredibly, immediately following the war, President Bush reverted to form. At President Bush's encouragement, an armed resistance to Saddam Hussein sprang up in Iraq. But at the critical moment, it was George Bush's decision to betray that resistance by tolerating Saddam Hussein's use of attack helicopters to put down the rebellions. That was a clear violation of the terms of the ceasefire, and it was a violation we had more than enough power to suppress. Had we insisted on the terms of the ceasefire, there would have been a much better chance that today we would not be facing Saddam Hussein in power. Should a man who mistook Saddam Hussein for a docile ally--and who then pursued that error to the point where the lives of hundreds of thousands of Americans had to be put on the line--have a second term as President of the United States? Has George Bush told the truth, the whole truth about a policy that left our nation facing a brutal, murderous dictator? If he will take credit for the victory, will he also take responsibility for the policy that made war inevitable? The answer to these questions is no. George Bush sent loan guarantees to an oil rich dictator. George Bush sold dangerous technology to a criminal who was intent on developing and using lethal weapons. George Bush sent secret intelligence reports to a man who, by any stretch of the imagination, could not be trusted. George Bush refused to face the truth or hear the urgent warnings coming from his own Administration. And then, George Bush put American lives on the line to cover in a war that never would have happened except for his mistakes. In so many ways, George Bush does not fit the requirements of the New World Order his own speechwriters once summoned up. We require a fresh approach from a new leader of vigor and high intelligence, of courage and vision, who believes to the core that the enemies of freedom cannot be anything but the enemies of our country. I think that the people of the United States have and will take the opportunity to select such a leader. Bill Clinton is that man.