Stephanie
Diamond Member
- Jul 11, 2004
- 70,230
- 10,864
- 2,040
Where's that great projectile puking smilie when you need it...
Thu Dec 14, 9:07 PM ET
CAIRO, Egypt - Senator John Kerry, visiting Egypt Thursday during a tour of the Middle East, accused the Bush administration of neglecting the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Kerry met Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and said they discussed Iraq as well as the Israeli-Palestinian dispute.
"I have always believed that the Middle East peace process is the critical issue of the region, and it has not been focused on for the past 6-7 years adequately," the Massachusetts Democrat told reporters after meeting Mubarak. "I think there has been a huge loss of opportunities."
Kerry, who narrowly lost to President Bush in the 2004 election, is also planning to visit Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Israel.
The senator said he agreed with the recommendation of the Iraq Study Group that the U.S. should engage adversaries such as Iran and Syria in trying to curb the conflict in Iraq. The recommendation was contained in the report by the bipartisan commission to the White House last week.
"I think it is important to talk and have a dialogue, but you don't give up our principles and you don't make deals that are against your larger interest. Syria needs to understand that and also Iran, but I think it is important to begin a discussion," Kerry said.
President Bush has expressed reluctance to seek help from Syria or Iran on Iraq because of their support for militant groups as well as Syria's alleged interference in Lebanon and Iran's suspected pursuit of nuclear weapons.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061215/ap_on_re_mi_ea/egypt_kerry
Snip:
CONCERN OVER RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN IRAQ
October 9, 1998
Mr. President,
Today, along with Senators McCain, Lieberman, Hutchison and twenty-three other Senators, I am sending a letter to the President to express our concern over Iraqs actions and urging the President, after consulting with Congress, and consistent with the U.S. Constitution and laws, to take necessary actions (including, if appropriate, air and missile strikes on suspect Iraqi sites) to respond effectively to the threat posed by Iraqs refusal to end its weapons of mass destruction programs
Mr. President, the Iraqi people are suffering because of Saddam Hussein's noncompliance. The United States has no quarrel with the Iraqi people. It is most unfortunate that they have been subjected to economic sanctions for more than seven years. If Saddam Hussein had cooperated with UNSCOM and the IAEA from the start and had met the other requirements of the UN Security Council resolutions, including the accounting for more than 600 Kuwaitis and third-country nationals who disappeared at the hands of Iraqi authorities during the occupation of Kuwait, those sanctions could have been lifted a number of years ago. I support the UN's oil-for-food program and regret that Saddam Hussein took more than five years to accept it. In the final analysis, as the Foreign Ministers of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, comprising the Gulf Cooperation Council stated at the time of the February crisis: `responsibility for the result of this crisis falls on the Iraqi regime itself.'
I ask that the letter to the President be printed in the Record.
The letter follows:
U.S. SENATE,
Committee on Armed Services,
Washington, DC, October 9, 1998.
The President,
The White House, Washington, DC.
Dear Mr. President: We are writing to express our concern over recent developments in Iraq .
Last February, the Senate was working on a resolution supporting military action if diplomacy did not succeed in convincing Saddam Hussein to comply with the United Nations Security Council resolutions concerning the disclosure and destruction of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. This effort was discontinued when the Iraqi government reaffirmed its acceptance of all relevant Security Council resolutions and reiterated its willingness to cooperate with the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in a Memorandum of Understanding signed by its Deputy Prime Minister and the United Nations Secretary General.
Despite a brief interval of cooperation, however, Saddam Hussein has failed to live up to his commitments. On August 5, Iraq suspended all cooperation with UNSCOM and the IAEA, except some limited monitoring activity.
As UNSCOM Executive Chairman Richard Butler told us in a briefing for all Senators in March, the fundamental historic reality is that Iraq has consistently sought to limit, mitigate, reduce and, in some cases, defeat the Security Council's resolutions by a variety of devices.
Sincerely,
Carl Levin, Joe Lieberman, Frank R. Lautenberg, Dick Lugar, Kit Bond, Jon Kyl, Chris Dodd, John McCain, Kay Bailey Hutchison, Alfonse D'Amato, Bob Kerrey, Pete V. Domenici, Dianne Feinstein, Barbara A. Mikulski.
Thomas Daschle, John Breaux, Tim Johnson, Daniel K. Inouye, Arlen Specter, James Inhofe, Strom Thurmond, Mary L. Landrieu, Wendell Ford, John F. Kerry, Chuck Grassley, Jesse Helms, Rick Santorum.
http://www.iraqwatch.org/government/US/Letters, reports and statements/levin-10-9-98.html
Thu Dec 14, 9:07 PM ET
CAIRO, Egypt - Senator John Kerry, visiting Egypt Thursday during a tour of the Middle East, accused the Bush administration of neglecting the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Kerry met Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and said they discussed Iraq as well as the Israeli-Palestinian dispute.
"I have always believed that the Middle East peace process is the critical issue of the region, and it has not been focused on for the past 6-7 years adequately," the Massachusetts Democrat told reporters after meeting Mubarak. "I think there has been a huge loss of opportunities."
Kerry, who narrowly lost to President Bush in the 2004 election, is also planning to visit Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Israel.
The senator said he agreed with the recommendation of the Iraq Study Group that the U.S. should engage adversaries such as Iran and Syria in trying to curb the conflict in Iraq. The recommendation was contained in the report by the bipartisan commission to the White House last week.
"I think it is important to talk and have a dialogue, but you don't give up our principles and you don't make deals that are against your larger interest. Syria needs to understand that and also Iran, but I think it is important to begin a discussion," Kerry said.
President Bush has expressed reluctance to seek help from Syria or Iran on Iraq because of their support for militant groups as well as Syria's alleged interference in Lebanon and Iran's suspected pursuit of nuclear weapons.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061215/ap_on_re_mi_ea/egypt_kerry
Snip:
CONCERN OVER RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN IRAQ
October 9, 1998
Mr. President,
Today, along with Senators McCain, Lieberman, Hutchison and twenty-three other Senators, I am sending a letter to the President to express our concern over Iraqs actions and urging the President, after consulting with Congress, and consistent with the U.S. Constitution and laws, to take necessary actions (including, if appropriate, air and missile strikes on suspect Iraqi sites) to respond effectively to the threat posed by Iraqs refusal to end its weapons of mass destruction programs
Mr. President, the Iraqi people are suffering because of Saddam Hussein's noncompliance. The United States has no quarrel with the Iraqi people. It is most unfortunate that they have been subjected to economic sanctions for more than seven years. If Saddam Hussein had cooperated with UNSCOM and the IAEA from the start and had met the other requirements of the UN Security Council resolutions, including the accounting for more than 600 Kuwaitis and third-country nationals who disappeared at the hands of Iraqi authorities during the occupation of Kuwait, those sanctions could have been lifted a number of years ago. I support the UN's oil-for-food program and regret that Saddam Hussein took more than five years to accept it. In the final analysis, as the Foreign Ministers of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, comprising the Gulf Cooperation Council stated at the time of the February crisis: `responsibility for the result of this crisis falls on the Iraqi regime itself.'
I ask that the letter to the President be printed in the Record.
The letter follows:
U.S. SENATE,
Committee on Armed Services,
Washington, DC, October 9, 1998.
The President,
The White House, Washington, DC.
Dear Mr. President: We are writing to express our concern over recent developments in Iraq .
Last February, the Senate was working on a resolution supporting military action if diplomacy did not succeed in convincing Saddam Hussein to comply with the United Nations Security Council resolutions concerning the disclosure and destruction of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. This effort was discontinued when the Iraqi government reaffirmed its acceptance of all relevant Security Council resolutions and reiterated its willingness to cooperate with the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in a Memorandum of Understanding signed by its Deputy Prime Minister and the United Nations Secretary General.
Despite a brief interval of cooperation, however, Saddam Hussein has failed to live up to his commitments. On August 5, Iraq suspended all cooperation with UNSCOM and the IAEA, except some limited monitoring activity.
As UNSCOM Executive Chairman Richard Butler told us in a briefing for all Senators in March, the fundamental historic reality is that Iraq has consistently sought to limit, mitigate, reduce and, in some cases, defeat the Security Council's resolutions by a variety of devices.
Sincerely,
Carl Levin, Joe Lieberman, Frank R. Lautenberg, Dick Lugar, Kit Bond, Jon Kyl, Chris Dodd, John McCain, Kay Bailey Hutchison, Alfonse D'Amato, Bob Kerrey, Pete V. Domenici, Dianne Feinstein, Barbara A. Mikulski.
Thomas Daschle, John Breaux, Tim Johnson, Daniel K. Inouye, Arlen Specter, James Inhofe, Strom Thurmond, Mary L. Landrieu, Wendell Ford, John F. Kerry, Chuck Grassley, Jesse Helms, Rick Santorum.
http://www.iraqwatch.org/government/US/Letters, reports and statements/levin-10-9-98.html
