Do U C What I C?

I turned on Fox News, some retired Colonel was going on and on about how Fallujah needed to be "cleansed" and how M al-Sadr needed to be, without exception, captured or killed. Who is to be "cleansed" in Fallujah? No one asked the Colonel about that, or anything else. One can only assume that anyone who resists the cleansing will be cleansed. When there is actual killing going on, the term "vicious cycle" should be used carefully.

Corporate Media Still Shilling for GW Bush

JF Kerry was asked a question that began "If you were President today..." and FOX News cut away to S Gorton's questions for FBI Director R Mueller. I checked ten or more other news stations, three had S Gorton, none had JF Kerry. S Gorton is four times more important than JF Kerry, that's the corporate media lesson for today. Slade Gorton is a retired Senator from Washington.

Firefighters and Police

We have heard a lot about these civil servants who died on September 11th, 2001. Primarily because there is a more uncomfortable fact, in that, more millionaires died that day than any day in history. The sinking of the Titanic is probably second, April 14th, 1912. That portends badly.

Remember

Each and every dead Iraqi is one less person to compete with in the global capitalist system.

Bullets Through Bodies

Over 700 in the last 8 days, according to reports. Former Iraqis, their bodies blown up, pieces of lead sent, 1000m/s, ripping through flesh. All for the new big hate. Have you joined the new big hate? Hate terrorists! Whoever they are, hate them! Hate, Hate, Hate!

Advice for Bush

A new President spends a minute at his new office with the old President he is replacing. In that minute, the departing President tells him, "I have left three numbered envelopes in the Oval Office. Open an envelope if you encounter a crisis you can't solve." Eight months down the track there is major drama, everything goes wrong - tmost unusual stuff - and the manager feels very threatened by it all. He remembers the parting words of his predecessor and opens the first envelope. The message inside says "Blame your predecessor!" He does this and gets off the hook. About a year later, the company is experiencing a dip in credibility, combined with serious, and lethal problems. The President quickly opens the second envelope. The message read, "Reorganize!" This he does, and the public is quickly distracted. Being smart, the new President opens the third envelope before the next crisis hits. The message inside says "Prepare three envelopes".

Some people just don't get it

Ever want to see what one loony pro-Israel (embarassing to the country) site is doing?

See, some loony Israelis are really mad about Lebanon.

Like with those Americans who are apoplectic about the US leaving Viet Nam, some Israelis believe they must hate Lebanon forever.

The main revolutionary military group that drove Israel out is named Hezbollah. Hezbollah used a lot of terrorist style attacks on Israelis interests in Lebanon to acheive this victory.

Hezbollah is accused of a couple 1992 attacks in Argentina, but other than that, their targets have been in Lebanon.

Hezbollah runs schools, hospitals, and has a respected role in the government of Lebanon, at least according to some of the internally respected parties.

Forget it, I explained what was going on, I'm not going to link to that loony after all.

Juan Cole Read My Mind

J Cole's blog, Informed Comment, is a good place to check regularly. He even had the same Idea as I had, Translating Americana into Arabic. Of course, I wrote to drop T Jefferson's writing's, especially now. Montesquieu's Spirit of Laws. Donate to his project, and suggest the same work! Why? Wouldn't handing them Thomas Jefferson be insufferable? "Hi, wouldn't you like to see why we are so happy today, see how Great Americans are?" rather than the Frenchman, predating America, "See how great ideas are?"

Despite My Strongest Inclinations

I do not believe, in an effort to get to the truth, that GW Bush, D Rumsfeld, RB Cheney, P Wolfowitz, G Tenet, C Rice, should be rendered to Jordan or Egypt.

I do not believe the use of rubber hoses, or a sock with something in it, should be used on these criminals, in order to find the complete truth.

That is what the bad guys do.

Horse Platoons

New York City has a Police Department, and it has lots of cops, in lots of roles. Some have beats, some have squad cars, some have motorcycles, some have motorscooters, and some have horses. There are six squads of horse cops in NYC.

This is a small potatoes issue, but there should be no more horse cops in NYC.

The reason they are there is for crowd control.

I can certainly agree that the PD's horses are very specially trained for this type of activity. Under all regular protest situations, I fully trust that the horses will follow the controls of their riders, and effectively perform their jobs.

However, something tells me that an action which is very possible, and possibly terrorist related, behind a line of horses doing crowd control over seated people (which I have seen), would result in people being crushed to death, in large numbers, by the horses.

Until such time as they are replaced with twice the number of crowd control trained police officers with appropriate equipment, horse crowd control units can never be scheduled to be at a certain event, that is how to avoid being a terrorist target.

Amnesty International Now a Fascist Front Group

William Schulz is the new Executive Director. He does not believe in torture. Like Bill O'Reilly of TV infamy who claims he is in the middle, because he doesn't believe in the death penalty. Schulz is a fascist fuck.

The Marc Rich Pardon

(I didn't have a blog then)

What was it Marc Rich did again? Something about arms. Something about arms trades with Iran. Something about arms trades with Iran in the mid 1980s. Arms Trading With Iran in the Mid-1980s. There is something remotely familiar about that idea. Marc Rich didn't pay any taxes on his arms trades with Iran in the mid 1980s. Nope, nothing to see, move along. Geesh.

C Powell, Trying to Destroy Iraq

He said, a couple minutes ago, we have to "smash the Madhi militia," M al-Sadr's independent Iraqi force.

John Lehman

Briefly, J Lehman, a 9/11 Commissioner, I thought, handled R Clarke fairly, or fairly poorly, and very neutrally, almost, overall. But what he's asking C Rice is awesome. I'm going to have to listen to it over and over.

C Rice's Dumb Message

C Rice claims that there is a message in Iraq, for the Middle East. Let's look at that claim a moment. Is the message "For any reason, perhaps trumped up, America can invade you, kill any citizens who resist, at any stage, or who, using any authority, suggest others resist, and this is how you will become free." This is a dumb message. It is a message of terrorism. America's terrorism. Most people don't know the origin of terrorism, the French Reign of Terror of the Jacobites, led by Robespierre. In emulating the American Revolution, the French went way too far. They simply executed the aristocracy. Eventually, all of France was ruled by a committee of of the more radical revolutionaries (the milder party were Girondists, and they included some Aristocrats, like the mathematician, and marquis, Condorcet). In order to intimidate "enemies" of the French Revolution, Robespierre declared he had a list, a list of enemies of the State. Who was on the list? No one could learn. What was the evidence? That too, would be secret. Robespierre had prominent revolutionaries jailed and executed, based on the list, primarily people who disagreed politically. This threat, this palpable, vocal intimidation, is terrorism, in its original form. This is what GW Bush has done to the Middle East. This is what hate-filled right wing people do. Considering how low my opinions are of these people, they might feel intimidated by me, in which case they'd consider me a terrorist. Please don't be afraid. I am entirely non-violent, unless you strike at me.

Reporter Shortage

The number of CIA dupes willing to write government propaganda is shrinking, and their e-mail boxes are filling up with the incensed hatred, and idiotic praise, of their increasingly, obviously, false claims.

In Praise of Nixon

According to a very knowledgable CIA critic, RM Nixon was the post-war President who tried to tackle the problem of a CIA run amok. No country with a CIA like our should be allowed to continue, unless that government is involved in rooting out this fascist evil. The former CIA people must be jailed, people like William Colby, if he is still alive. There is no other way to teach people a lesson. There is no other way for the rest of the world to know we are deadly serious.

Arranged Greetings

First thing I noticed is that the administration arranged to have two people of color, and two women, in three people, as the last people shaking the hands of Condileeza Rice before she took her seat. "Work the Fucking Refs"

Austrian School, Crackpots!

Awesome debunking of every libertarian and supply side nutjob theory. Listen folks, the Austrian school of economics, the ones pushed by the RW Reagan and GW Bush administrations, is fucking evil, unless you are a Monarch, in which case you and your rich friends will get rich. The Austrian School is filled with RACISTS, SEXISTS, AND TOTAL FUCKING MORONS. LUDWIG VOS MISES IS THE LIBERTARIAN DREAM ECONOMIST, A RACIST, SEXIST MORON.

N Schwartzkopf

Is a particularly admirable man. I wonder who was pushing him to "precipitous" action, early, in Iraq, during the first Gulf War. In his book, It Doesn't Take A Hero, and during the c-span booknotes interview following, he talked about officials in the administration of GHW Bush (the most decent Republican President since DD Eisenhower), who were pushing him to take drastic and immediate action, before the military was ready, in a way that lacked any military sense. I am guessing it is the same nutjobs that ran the Iraq war.

JF Kerry and J McCain

I want JF Kerry to be President, and not GW Bush. J McCain is trying to get an important ANTI-PORK measure through Congress, and GW Bush has promised to stop it. JF Kerry has promised that J McCain will be handed the pen the second JF Kerry has signed the order. JF Kerry is already supporting J McCain's bill in the Senate.

Good Senators

Senators Robert Byrd of West Virginia, Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts, Carl Levin of Michigan, and the Democrat candidate for President, Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts

Alan Greenspan

Further proof this guy is a fucking idiot. A quote from Alan Greenspan from 1966

The abandonment of the gold standard made it possible for the welfare statists to use the banking system as a means to an unlimited expansion of credit.... In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through inflation. There is no safe store of value.... Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the "hidden" confiscation of wealth.... [Gold] stands as a protector of property rights."

Dear Mr. Fucking Moron Greenspan. Note, asshole, that inflation is as low as it has ever been. Note, shit-for-brains, that I can't imagine property rights being stronger. Corporations and their property have rights far exceeding those of even governments, now. MORON LIST

Jude Wanniski (founder of Supply Side Economic theory, in its modern form)

Alan Greenspan

Ludwig von Mises

my father

America left the gold standard in 1933, and these nitwits are STILL whining! It's been seventy years, and the only 70 years in history without a depression, and these stupid, stupid, stupid, motherfuckers can't get it through their thick fucking skulls. Lucky for von Mises, he is dead, so can no longer be embarassed by his own stupidity.

South Korea, hmm

I haven't studied the Korean situation nearly as much as many of the other things which interest me, but I knew the recent impeachment of their Prime Minister, Roh, whose policies on North Korea were entirely at odds with the administration of GW Bush, wasn't something that sounded great. Then again, I'm not even clear on the charges, and even if I knew the charges, I doubt I could fully ascertain their trutfhfulness, or exactly what was going on if they weren't truthful. It looks like the Korean people have turned on the two parties which launched the impeachment. Let's hope all of South Korea's public servants remember, at least a little each day, that their real job is governmental, and not partisan.

Stupid E Dole

    Original post as comments, upgraded for language purposes.

     E Dole, a Senator, is stupid as dookie.  Ignorant as she is, she had the nerve to talk about Reagan and the USSR.

     Now we can all know that JF Kennedy lied about the "missile gap," and was wrong for lying.

     If JF Kennedy was wrong for that, RW Reagan was infinitely more wrong for his suggestions that the USSR was a threat.

     Not only that, under Reagan/Bush is when the USSR entered the free world, and so they must be held responsible for the degraded position of Russia today.

     Screw Reagan and Dole.

Stupidest Senators

Elizabeth Dole of North Carolina and Susan Collins of Maine. Maybe Bunning of Kentucky, or Johnson of South Dakota, are stupider, but, in fact, they are smart enough to keep their mouths shut. George Allen of Virginia and Richard Santorum are also incredibly stupid and fucked in the head.

You need to see it?

Graphic picture of an unintended consquence

My History

On September 4th, 2001, I signed a lease to move to Battery Park City, my residence about four blocks South of the former World Trade Center. My move in date was September 15th, 2001. I remember I almost asked to make in the tenth. I didn't get in till October 10th, 2001, because of the last American hijackings (four planes at once). You know, at the time, I was mad that the management company of my building was so unhelpful getting me into my new place. My old landlord, thankfully, was entirely understanding, but that was just luck, honestly (Thanks Bill!) But, considering how the government lied to New Yorkers about the risks of the air, it is probably just as well. For the record, my old apartment had been three blocks from the United Nations, on Murray Hill, in Tudor City. Guess who didn't go home for a long time on September 11th, living, as he did, near the UN? That day I walked along the Hudson up to about 110th Street, then headed across to a bar on the East Side, where I won a free shot of some awful liquer for knowing what a Zaibatsu was.

Possibly how to Help Stop Troubles in Iraq

A lesson of the long deceased N Curzon, long "succesful" British administrator of the North West Frontier province from 1898 to somewhere between 1902 and 1905. The raiders, Bugti from Afghanistan, travelled to their targets. In this case, the directions were fairly constant, over a particular border. Curzon removed garrisons, likely targets, and made patrols in the direction of the border, cross-cutting the expected paths of the raiders. I have no real way of knowing whether there are regular "raiding" routes in use, but some arrows exist on a map the DoD has made public.

Our President

Let's face it, we rule. We can rule well, or poorly, but we basically rule. How we handle our mistakes will help dictate how our servants will behave, too. I propose that our servants, the President and many of the most vocal pro-war Congresspeople, go to help the Iraqis. Each of them to be the servant of a member of the new Iraqi Parliament, to honestly help them become a Republic. I don't see them helping.

Don Rumsfeld, fuckwad

No one more than Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz should be blamed for the Iraq War. They were directing D Feith and W Luti, who were also cognizant of their role. The Defense Intelligence Agency, controlled by the Secretary of Defense, and not the Director of Central Intelligence (Head of the CIA), is 80-85% of the total US intelligence budget. DCI Tenet probably made some complaints, but apparently not enough. Secretary of State C Powell wanted to fight again in al-Iraq, according to someone I heard before the Bush administration took office. It's in the last couple minutes of the 40th anniversary of Eisenhower's Military-Industrial Complex speech, which, since our elections are regularly timed, was a week before Bush took office. It was hosted by the Nation magazine.

Sorry!

i had tried being nice for a little while. freak that

Non Stop Shame

Today I saw the following shit-eaters. The CEO of Pfizer on Washington Journal A whole bunch of military-industrial-complex kiss-asses, like Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska, and all the Republicans. Mark Dayton of Minnesota, per usual, was far better in handling the witnesses for the committee, meeting on defense intelligence. A lot of these $$$ morons Kill Kill Kill talk about us needing massive numbers of UAVs. The example given was that in one case in the Iraq war, we didn't want our troops to advance unless a bridge was still up, but the commander couldn't see the bridge. We had absolute air superiority, and satellites must have been focussed in, and this peice of dookie is what they hold up for us to buy. Their mouths should be washed out with shit, to get a sense of what they are trying to do to us.

Separation Fence Bad, Tunnels Bad

The separation fence is very bad. The Israeli Defense Forces claim that they have destroyed 80 tunnels to Egypt, over the years, possibly used for smuggling weapons into Gaza. The fence, above ground, is bad. But if the Israelis wanted to build an underground wall, to stop tunnels, on their side of the Egyptian border, and they didn't interfere with water mains or anything, then I don't see how that would be bad at all.

Proof?

How many Iranians should die, in 10s of thousands, to prove that we made a mistake in accusing Iran of having a nuclear bomb program? I think if it were up to the Bush administration, every single Iranian could die to prove that America, using the UN, is trumping up evidence in order to invade Iran. There is no nuclear bomb in Iran. There is no nuclear bomb program. We won't find one. We've never seen one (have you seen anything? Even one picture of a facility alleged to be a nuke plant?) But there is a lot of money in war. Kill Kill Kill the Iranians. Kill Kill Kill the Iranians. Kill Kill Kill the Iranians. Follow Bush's Law! Bush is a warmongering killer. He doesn't deserve to be pooped on. His brains are smaller than a chihuahua's. And he thinks he's never wrong Didn't you like the way he called the Reverend Billy Graham Just to prove that jews will lose and spend etern' in flammes Bush is a blithering idiot He doesn't know ass end from up He's the stupidest man ever to be a fascist front. Can't we all, get along, and bomb a few with him? Taught to early chillens, killing is a sin.

Even in the worst of times

I don't like the pendulum metaphor for political change, but using it for a second, I get this. Even when the Left is most justified and correct, the Right still offers the elevators up. The classics help me. The right praises the classics. Too much? Probably. Can you afford to miss them? Probably not. Patriotism is important. The right praises patriotism. Too much? Certainly now. Can you afford to lack it entirely? Not if you want to be succesful in this world. The really amazing thing about the early American debates is how many ideas were there, ideas we never hear anymore. The congressional record, unlike history of cliche, is written by an impartial observer.

Remain Calm Exclusive? Report

Examine Benador Associates, run by Eleana Benador. She has most of the biggest major league liars of the Iraq war working in her lineup, the booking agent of evil-doers. AM Haig, R Perle, C Krauthammer, J Woolsey, R Pipes, and a full lineup of Middle Eastern expatriates. It's a pretty select group. The problem with the scenario is that Benador is no one. She doesn't register. Her whole existence is that she manages the biggest stable of neo-con stars outside of government, and she is a nobody. How did this person become so powerful? Imagine Richard Perle is one good client of hers. Did someone simply use their rolodex to lure people to Eleana? Does she have great rates or something? Articles say she believes in her speakers, and that can help make a great salesperson. Was the KKK a government organization? No. But some government officials then, and ex-government officials, undoubtedly took part. I guess the most rational way to look at it is to say that these independent operators, with a massive rolodex, conjured up goals they thought good for Israel (as scaring and killing blacks was considered good for "the South"), i.e. taking out Middle Eastern despots. Did any official, in an official capacity, give a wink and a nod to the proceedings? I have no idea who would ever tell me so I could find out. Now, Strauss describes, quiet attractively, in The City And Man, a world where there are no tyrants, but like any hocus-pocus-meister, there was no action plan attached. But Benador Associates were just an adjunct to this whole miasma, a bit part. But for the public, they were the "un"-official show to match the "official" (administration) version.

Bush's Speech to America Concerning the Impending War With Iraq, October, 2002 Cincinnati

I will spend a while, now, marking up the President's speech to the American people from Cincinatti, Ohio, in October, 2002.

WMD	red letters, dark background
WMD programs	lighter red letters
Weapons, non-WMD, and other related	even lighter red letters
Inspections	red letters, lighter gray background
attacks of Sept. 11th, 2001	blue letters, dark background
terrorism	green background
liberation	light letters, light blue background
regime change	purple background
salutations, pap	black letters, grey background
threat	yellow background

 Thank you for that very gracious and warm Cincinnati welcome. I'm honored to be here tonight. I appreciate you all coming. Tonight I want to take a few minutes to discuss a grave threat to peace and America's determination to lead the world in confronting that threat.

 The threat comes from Iraq. It arises directly from the Iraqi regime's own actions, its history of aggression and its drive toward an arsenal of terror.

 Eleven years ago, as a condition for ending the Persian Gulf War, the Iraqi regime was required to destroy its weapons of mass destruction, to cease all development of such weapons and to stop all support for terrorist groups. The Iraqi regime has violated all of those obligations. It possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons. It is seeking nuclear weapons. It has given shelter and support to terrorism and practices terror against its own people. The entire world has witnessed Iraq's 11-year history of defiance, deception and bad faith.

 We must also never forget the most vivid events of recent history. On September 11 2001, America felt its vulnerability even to threats that gather on the other side of the Earth. We resolved then, and we are resolved today, to confront every threat from any source that could bring sudden terror and suffering to America.

 Members of Congress of both political parties, and members of the United Nations Security Council, agree that Saddam Hussein is a threat to peace and must disarm. We agree that the Iraqi dictator must not be permitted to threaten America and the world with horrible poisons and diseases and gases and atomic weapons.

 Since we all agree on this goal, the issue is how best can we achieve it?

 Many Americans have raised legitimate questions about the nature of the threat, about the urgency of action. Why be concerned now? About the link between Iraq developing weapons of terror and the wider war on terror.

 These are all issues we've discussed broadly and fully within my administration, and tonight I want to share those discussions with you.

 First, some ask why Iraq is different from other countries or regimes that also have terrible weapons. While there are many dangers in the world, the threat from Iraq stands alone because it gathers the most serious dangers of our age in one place.

 Iraq's weapons of mass destruction are controlled by a murderous tyrant who has already used chemical weapons to kill thousands of people. This same tyrant has tried to dominate the Middle East, has invaded and brutally occupied a small neighbor, has struck other nations without warning and holds an unrelenting hostility toward the United States. By its past and present actions, by its technological capabilities, by the merciless nature of its regime, Iraq is unique.

 As a former chief weapons inspector of the UN has said, "The fundamental problem with Iraq remains the nature of the regime itself." Saddam Hussein is a homicidal dictator who is addicted to weapons of mass destruction.

 Some ask how urgent this danger is to America and the world. The danger is already significant, and it only grows worse with time. If we know Saddam Hussein has dangerous weapons today - and we do - does it make any sense for the world to wait to confront him as he grows even stronger and develops even more dangerous weapons?

 In 1995, after several years of deceit by the Iraqi regime, the head of Iraq's military industries defected. It was then that the regime was forced to admit that it had produced more than 30,000 litres of anthrax and other deadly biological agents. The inspectors, however, concluded that Iraq had likely produced two to four times that amount. This is a massive stockpile of biological weapons that has never been accounted for and is capable of killing millions.

 We know that the regime has produced thousands of tons of chemical agents, including mustard gas, Sarin nerve gas, VX nerve gas. Saddam Hussein also has experience in using chemical weapons. He's ordered chemical attacks on Iran and on more than 40 villages in his own country. These actions killed or injured at least 20,000 people: more than six times the number of people who died in the attacks of September 11.

 And surveillance photos reveal that the regime is rebuilding facilities that it had used to produce chemical and biological weapons. Every chemical and biological weapon that Iraq has or makes is a direct violation of the truce that ended the Persian Gulf War in 1991.Yet Saddam Hussein has chosen to build and keep these weapons, despite international sanctions, UN demands and isolation from the civilized world.

 Iraq possesses ballistic missiles with a likely range of hundreds of miles; far enough to strike Saudi Arabia, Israel, Turkey and other nations in a region where more than 135,000 American civilians and service members live and work.

 We've also discovered through intelligence that Iraq has a growing fleet of manned and unmanned aerial vehicles [UAVs] that could be used to disperse chemical and biological weapons across broad areas. We're concerned that Iraq is exploring ways of using these UAVs for missions targeting the United States.

 And, of course, sophisticated delivery systems aren't required for a chemical or biological attack. All that might be required are a small container and one terrorist or Iraqi intelligence operative to deliver it. And that is the source of our urgent concern about Saddam Hussein's links to international terrorist groups.

 Over the years Iraq has provided safe haven to terrorists such as Abu Nidal, whose terror organization carried out more than 90 terrorist attacks in 20 countries that killed or injured nearly 900 people, including 12 Americans.

 Iraq has also provided safe haven to Abu Abbas, who is responsible for seizing the Achille Lauro and killing an American passenger. And we know that Iraq is continuing to finance terror and gives assistance to groups that use terrorism to undermine Middle East peace.

 We know that Iraq and the al-Qaida terrorist network share a common enemy: the United States of America. We know that Iraq and al-Qaida have had high-level contacts that go back a decade.

 Some al-Qaida leaders who fled Afghanistan went to Iraq. These include one very senior al-Qaida leader who received medical treatment in Baghdad this year and who has been associated with planning for chemical and biological attacks.

 We've learned that Iraq has trained al-Qaida members in bomb-making and poisons and deadly gases. And we know that after September 11 Saddam Hussein's regime gleefully celebrated the terrorist attacks on America.

 Iraq could decide on any given day to provide a biological or chemical weapon to a terrorist group or individual terrorists. Alliance with terrorists could allow the Iraqi regime to attack America without leaving any fingerprints.

 Some have argued that confronting the threat from Iraq could detract from the war against terror. To the contrary, confronting the threat posed by Iraq is crucial to winning the war on terror.

 When I spoke to Congress more than a year ago, I said that those who harbor terrorists are as guilty as the terrorists themselves. Saddam Hussein is harboring terrorists and the instruments of terror, the instruments of mass death and destruction, and he cannot be trusted. The risk is simply too great that he will use them or provide them to a terror network.

 Terror cells and outlaw regimes building weapons of mass destruction are different faces of the same evil. Our security requires that we confront both, and the United States military is capable of confronting both.

 Many people have asked how close Saddam Hussein is to developing a nuclear weapon.Well, we don't know exactly, and that's the problem. Before the Gulf War, the best intelligence indicated that Iraq was eight to 10 years away from developing a nuclear weapon. After the war, international inspectors learned that the regime had been much closer. The regime in Iraq would likely have possessed a nuclear weapon no later than 1993.

 The inspectors discovered that Iraq had an advanced nuclear weapons development program, had a design for a workable nuclear weapon and was pursuing several different methods of enriching uranium for a bomb. Before being barred from Iraq in 1998, the International Atomic Energy Agency dismantled extensive nuclear weapons-related facilities, including three uranium enrichment sites.

 That same year, information from a high-ranking Iraqi nuclear engineer who had defected revealed that, despite his public promises, Saddam Hussein had ordered his nuclear program to continue.

 The evidence indicates that Iraq is reconstituting its nuclear weapons program. Saddam Hussein has held numerous meetings with Iraqi nuclear scientists . . . his "nuclear mujaheddin," his nuclear holy warriors.

 Satellite photographs reveal that Iraq is rebuilding facilities at sites that have been part of his nuclear program in the past.

 Iraq has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes and other equipment needed for gas centrifuges, which are used to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons.

 If the Iraqi regime is able to produce, buy or steal an amount of highly enriched uranium a little larger than a single softball, he could have a nuclear weapon in less than a year.

 And if we allow that to happen, a terrible line would be crossed. Saddam Hussein would be in a position to blackmail anyone who opposes his aggression. He would be in a position to dominate the Middle East. He would be in a position to threaten America. And Saddam Hussein would be in a position to pass nuclear technology to terrorists.

 Some citizens wonder, "After 11 years of living with this problem, why do we need to confront it now?"

 And there's a reason. We have experienced the horror of September 11. We have seen that those who hate America are willing to crash airplanes into buildings full of innocent people. Our enemies would be no less willing, in fact they would be eager, to use biological or chemical or a nuclear weapon.

 Knowing these realities, America must not ignore the threat gathering against us. Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof, the smoking gun that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud.

 As President Kennedy said in October of 1962, "Neither the United States of America nor the world community of nations can tolerate deliberate deception and offensive threats on the part of any nation, large or small. We no longer live in a world," he said, "where only the actual firing of weapons represents a sufficient challenge to a nation's security to constitute maximum peril."

 Understanding the threats of our time, knowing the designs and deceptions of the Iraqi regime, we have every reason to assume the worst, and we have an urgent duty to prevent the worst from occurring.

 Some believe we can address this danger by simply resuming the old approach to inspections and applying diplomatic and economic pressure. Yet this is precisely what the world has tried to do since 1991.

 The UN inspections program was met with systematic deception. The Iraqi regime bugged hotel rooms and offices of inspectors to find where they were going next. They forged documents, destroyed evidence and developed mobile weapons facilities to keep a step ahead of inspectors. Eight so-called presidential palaces were declared off-limits to unfettered inspections. These sites actually encompass 12 square miles, with hundreds of structures both above and below the ground where sensitive materials could be hidden.

 The world has also tried economic sanctions and watched Iraqi's billions of dollars in illegal oil revenues to fund more weapons purchases rather than provide for the needs of the Iraqi people.

 The world has tried limited military strikes to destroy Iraq's weapons of mass destruction capabilities, only to see them openly rebuilt while the regime again denies they even exist.

 The world has tried no-fly zones to keep Saddam from terrorizing his own people, and in the last year alone the Iraqi military has fired upon American and British pilots more than 750 times.

 After 11 years during which we've tried containment, sanctions, inspections, even selected military action, the end result is that Saddam Hussein still has chemical and biological weapons and is increasing his capabilities to make more. And he is moving ever closer to developing a nuclear weapon.

 Clearly, to actually work, any new inspections, sanctions or enforcement mechanisms will have to be very different. America wants the UN to be an effective organization that helps keep the peace. And that is why we are urging the Security Council to adopt a new resolution setting out tough, immediate requirements.

 Among those requirements the Iraqi regime must reveal and destroy, under UN supervision, all existing weapons of mass destruction. To ensure that we learn the truth, the regime must allow witnesses to its illegal activities to be interviewed outside the country. And these witnesses must be free to bring their families with them, so they are all beyond the reach of Saddam Hussein's terror and murder.

 And inspectors must have access to any site, at any time without pre-clearance, without delay, without exceptions.

 The time of denying, deceiving and delaying has come to an end. Saddam Hussein must disarm himself, or, for the sake of peace, we will lead a coalition to disarm him.

 Many nations are joining us and insisting that Saddam Hussein's regime be held accountable. They are committed to defending the international security that protects the lives of both our citizens and theirs.

 And that's why America is challenging all nations to take the resolutions of the UN Security Council seriously. These resolutions are very clear. In addition to declaring and destroying all of its weapons of mass destruction, Iraq must end its support for terrorism. It must cease the persecution of its civilian population. It must stop all illicit trade outside the oil-for-food program. It must release or account for all Gulf War personnel, including an American pilot whose fate is still unknown.

 By taking these steps and by only taking these steps, the Iraqi regime has an opportunity to avoid conflict.

 These steps would also change the nature of the Iraqi regime itself. America hopes the regime will make that choice. Unfortunately, at least so far, we have little reason to expect it. And that's why two administrations - mine and President Clinton's - have stated that regime change in Iraq is the only certain means of removing a great danger to our nation.

 I hope this will not require military action, but it may. And military conflict could be difficult. An Iraqi regime faced with its own demise may attempt cruel and desperate measures. If Saddam Hussein orders such measures, his generals would be well advised to refuse those orders. If they do not refuse, they must understand that all war criminals will be pursued and punished.

 If we have to act, we will take every precaution that is possible. We will plan carefully. We will act with the full power of the United States military. We will act with allies at our side and we will prevail.

 There is no easy or risk-free course of action. Some have argued we should wait, and that's an option. In my view, it's the riskiest of all options, because the longer we wait, the stronger and bolder Saddam Hussein will become. We could wait and hope that Saddam does not give weapons to terrorists or develop a nuclear weapon to blackmail the world. But I'm convinced that is a hope against all evidence.

 As Americans, we want peace. We work and sacrifice for peace. But there can be no peace if our security depends on the will and whims of a ruthless and aggressive dictator. I'm not willing to stake one American life on trusting Saddam Hussein.

 Failure to act would embolden other tyrants, allow terrorists access to new weapons and new resources, and make blackmail a permanent feature of world events.

 The United Nations would betray the purpose of its founding and prove irrelevant to the problems of our time. And through its inaction, the United States would resign itself to a future of fear.

 That is not the America I know. That is not the America I serve. We refuse to live in fear.

 This nation, in world war and in cold war, has never permitted the brutal and lawless to set history's course. Now, as before, we will secure our nation, protect our freedom and help others to find freedom of their own.

 Some worry that a change of leadership in Iraq could create instability and make the situation worse. The situation could hardly get worse for world security and for the people of Iraq.

 The lives of Iraqi citizens would improve dramatically if Saddam Hussein were no longer in power, just as the lives of Afghanistan's citizens improved after the Taliban.

 The dictator of Iraq is a student of Stalin, using murder as a tool of terror and control, within his own cabinet, within his own army and even within his own family.

 On Saddam Hussein's orders, opponents had been decapitated, wives and mothers of political opponents had been systematically raped as a method of intimidation, and political prisoners had been forced to watch their own children being tortured.

 America believes that all people are entitled to hope and human rights, to the nonnegotiable demands of human dignity.

 People everywhere prefer freedom to slavery, prosperity to squalor, self-government to the rule of terror and torture.

 America is a friend to the people of Iraq. Our demands are directed only at the regime that enslaves them and threatens us. When these demands are met, the first and greatest benefit will come to Iraqi men, women and children. The oppression of Kurds, Assyrians, Turkomen, Shia, Sunnis and others will be lifted, the long captivity of Iraq will end, and an era of new hope will begin.

 Iraq is a land rich in culture and resources and talent. Freed from the weight of oppression, Iraq's people will be able to share in the progress and prosperity of our time.

 If military action is necessary, the United States and our allies will help the Iraqi people rebuild their economy and create the institutions of liberty in a unified Iraq, at peace with its neighbors.

 Later this week, the United States Congress will vote on this matter. I have asked Congress to authorize the use of America's military if it proves necessary to enforce UN Security Council demands.

 Approving this resolution does not mean that military action is imminent or unavoidable. The resolution will tell the United Nations, and all nations, that America speaks with one voice and it is determined to make the demands of the civilized world mean something.

 Congress will also be sending a message to the dictator in Iraq that his only chance - his only choice is full compliance, and the time remaining for that choice is limited.

 Members of Congress are nearing an historic vote. I'm confident they will fully consider the facts and their duties.

 The attacks of September 11 showed our country that vast oceans no longer protect us from danger. Before that tragic date, we had only hints of al-Qaida's plans and designs. Today, in Iraq, we see a threat whose outlines are far more clearly defined and whose consequences could be far more deadly.

 Saddam Hussein's actions have put us on notice, and there's no refuge from our responsibilities.

 We did not ask for this present challenge, but we accept it. Like other generations of Americans, we will meet the responsibility of defending human liberty against violence and aggression. By our resolve, we will give strength to others. By our courage, we will give hope to others. And by our actions, we will secure the peace and lead the world to a better day.

 May God bless America.