(Click to enlarge.)

We’ve all heard that Kerry was for the war before he was against it. But did you know he was for the war before President Bush was?

In a Letter from the Senate Committee on Armed Services to President Bill Clinton on October 9, 1998, Kerry – along with 26 other Senators – authorized Clinton to take “necessary actions (including, if appropriate, air and missile strikes on suspect Iraq sites)”. Want to know why? Jump to the next entry and take the “Political Pop-Quiz.”

(Do me a favor: be nice to my bandwidth, will ya? Save a copy on your own site instead of linking directly to the full-sized image here. Thanks!)

(Letter image via t3h bl0g.)

UPDATE (Developing): A reader inquired – and justly so – how we confirm the accuracy of this letter. Since the Senate Committee page archives don’t include documents dating back to 1998, I’ve had to go around the long way to corroborate the accuracy as follows:

1. Sen. Levin’s remarks to the Senate, given on the same date, refer specifically to the contents of the letter and the Senators’ joint authorization for President Clinton to use, if necessary, military action against Iraq.

2. e.thePeople’s site posted a reprint of the letter last March (along with a wonderful list of equally damning links).

3. The specific statement authorizing military action, as well as the fact that John Kerry signed it, was mentioned by Snopes which affirmed the accuracy of an email containing numerous Democratic leaders’ statements acknowledging Saddam Hussein’s possession of WMDs.

4. Excerpts from the letter were included on the Vermont GOP site’s collection of statements by “Democrats on the WMD issue”.

5. The website of U.S. Senator John Cornyn (R-Texas) also sets forth the entire contents of the letter, including the names of the 26 signators.

6. Finally, although not direct confirmation of the letter itself, I submit the following remarks by John Kerry in an address to the students of Georgetown University on Jan. 23, 2003. six years after the Senate Armed Services Committee’s letter to President Clinton, and three months before President Bush sent a letter to the speaker of the House and president of the Senate declaring an end to negotiations. These remarks indicate that Kerry consistently believed Saddam Hussein possessed WMDs – and that the U.S. was jusitifed in taking military action against him… a position he did not change until he decided to woo the anti-war Left in his presidential bid.

…Second, without question, we need to disarm Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal, murderous dictator, leading an oppressive regime. We all know the litany of his offenses. He presents a particularly grievous threat because he is so consistently prone to miscalculation. He miscalculated an eight-year war with Iran. He miscalculated the invasion of Kuwait. He miscalculated America’s response to that act of naked aggression. He miscalculated the result of setting oil rigs on fire. He miscalculated the impact of sending scuds into Israel and trying to assassinate an American President. He miscalculated his own military strength. He miscalculated the Arab world’s response to his misconduct. And now he is miscalculating America’s response to his continued deceit and his consistent grasp for weapons of mass destruction. That is why the world, through the United Nations Security Council, has spoken with one voice, demanding that Iraq disclose its weapons programs and disarm.

So the threat of Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction is real, but it is not new. It has been with us since the end of the Persian Gulf War. Regrettably the current Administration failed to take the opportunity to bring this issue to the United Nations two years ago or immediately after September 11th, when we had such unity of spirit with our allies. When it finally did speak, it was with hasty war talk instead of a coherent call for Iraqi disarmament. And that made it possible for other Arab regimes to shift their focus to the perils of war for themselves rather than keeping the focus on the perils posed by Saddam’s deadly arsenal. Indeed, for a time, the Administration’s unilateralism, in effect, elevated Saddam in the eyes of his neighbors to a level he never would have achieved on his own, undermining America’s standing with most of the coalition partners which had joined us in repelling the invasion of Kuwait a decade ago.

Thursday, October 28th, 2004, 1:09 pm   |   Politics Bite  |  RSS feed Comments and pings are currently closed.