Kerry's Position Prior to the War

Kerry’s Position Prior to the War

Despite multiple recent interviews with John Kerry clarifying is position on Iraq, critics continue to try to distort his position, or to claim he is late to the anti-war cause. Reviewing Kerry’s statements going back to the IWR vote shows Kerry has been consistent in his belief that the purpose of granting the President the authority to go to war was to give the President the leverage to force the weapons inspectors back in and to to to war only as a last resort if we were proven to be threatened by WMD.

Prior to the war, Kerry wrote an op-ed article in the New York Times laying out the case for a diplomatic solution:

For the sake of our country, the legitimacy of our cause and our ultimate success in Iraq, the administration must seek advice and approval from Congress, laying out the evidence and making the case. Then, in concert with our allies, it must seek full enforcement of the existing cease-fire agreement from the United Nations Security Council. We should at the same time offer a clear ultimatum to Iraq before the world: Accept rigorous inspections without negotiation or compromise. Some in the administration actually seem to fear that such an ultimatum might frighten Saddam Hussein into cooperating. If Saddam Hussein is unwilling to bend to the international community’s already existing order, then he will have invited enforcement, even if that enforcement is mostly at the hands of the United States, a right we retain even if the Security Council fails to act. But until we have properly laid the groundwork and proved to our fellow citizens and our allies that we really have no other choice, we are not yet at the moment of unilateral decision-making in going to war against Iraq.

While Kerry did believe, as most did at the time due to the manipulation of intelligence data, that Saddam had WMD, he did not urge going to war except as a last resort. In his Senate floor statement at the time of the vote he said:

Mr. President, I will be voting to give the President of the United States the authority to use force - if necessary - to disarm Saddam Hussein because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a real and grave threat to our security and that of our allies in the Persian Gulf region. And I will vote “yes” because on the question of how best to hold Saddam Hussein accountable, the Administration, including the President, recognizes that war must be our last option to address this threat, not the first, and that we should be acting in concert with allies around the globe to make the world’s case against Saddam Hussein. As the President made clear earlier this week, “Approving this resolution does not mean that military action is imminent or unavoidable.” It means that “America speaks with one voice.”

Let me be clear: I am voting to give this authority to the President for one reason and one reason only: to disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction if we cannot accomplish that objective through new tough weapons inspections. In giving the President this authority, I expect him to fulfill the commitments he has made to the American people in recent days - to work with the United Nations Security Council to adopt a new resolution setting out “tough, immediate” inspections requirements and to “act with our allies at our side” if we have to disarm Saddam Hussein by force.

If he fails to do so, I will be the first to speak out. If we do go to war with Iraq, it is imperative that we do so in concert with others in the international community. The Administration has come to recognize this as has our closet ally, Prime Minister Tony Blair in Britain. The Administration may not be in the habit of building coalitions, but that is what they need to do - and it is what can be done. If we go it alone without reason, we risk inflaming an entire region and breeding a new generation of terrorists, a new cadre of anti-American zealots - and we will be less secure, not more secure, at the end of the day, even with Saddam Hussein disarmed. Let there be no doubt or confusion as to where I stand: I will support a multilateral effort to disarm Iraq by force, if we have exhausted all other options. But I cannot - and will not - support a unilateral, US war against Iraq unless the threat is imminent and no multilateral effort is possible.

And in voting to grant the President the authority to use force, I am not giving him carte blanche to run roughshod over every country that poses - or may pose - a potential threat to the United States. . .

Mr. President, Congressional action on this resolution is not the end of our national debate on how best to disarm Iraq. Nor does it mean that we have exhausted all our peaceful options to achieve this goal. There is much more to be done.

Following the onset of the war Kerry protested by saying, ‘’What we need now is not just a regime change in Saddam Hussein and Iraq, but we need a regime change in the United States.” .On March 18, 2003 Kerry released a statement concluding with:

My strong personal preference would have been for the Administration - like the Administration of George Bush, Sr. — to have given diplomacy more time, more commitment, a real chance of success. In my estimation, giving the world thirty additional days for additional real multilateral coalition building - a real summit, not a five hour flyby with most of the world’s powers excluded — would have been prudent and no impediment to our military situation, an assessment with which our top military brass apparently agree. Unfortunately, that is an option that has been disregarded by President Bush. In the colloquial, we are where we are. It will take years to repair the needless damage done by this Administration, damage to our international standing and moral leadership, to traditional and time-tested alliances, to our relations with the Arab world, ultimately to ourselves.