This is a speech made by Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, recently ousted in Georgia.

A brave and courageious woman. May God bless her brave, courageous, and patriotic soul.


Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney
U.S. Policy Toward Iraq
House International Relations Committee Hearing
Thursday, September 19, 2002

Mr. Chairman:

Once again the world now waits with fear and
trepidation regarding the threat
of a US attack on Iraq.

The President provides as justification for this
impending attack the Iraqi
refusal to comply with UN resolutions regarding
weapons inspections, the
alleged Iraqi threat to its neighbors and the Iraqi
government's mistreatment
of its own citizens.

The American people are being called upon to send
their young sons and
daughters to go and kill young Iraqi sons and
daughters. This war, like all
wars, will be brutal and will leave many American
and Iraqi families mourning
the loss of their children.

We're not allowed to publicly question the Bush
Administration for fear of
being called unpatriotic.
Aren't we entitled to really know why we're being
urged to go to war? Aren't
we entitled to be confident that the Administration
is telling the truth?
We know that this Administration has some trouble
with telling the truth.
You might recall that the White House had a kind of
amnesia a few months ago
and didn't tell the truth about September 11 until I
asked some pretty straightforward questions. In so doing, it seems I
helped them remember that they had in fact received a whole raft of reports warning of terrorist attacks against this country.

And this is the same Administration, which stole the 2000 election in Florida and then lied about it.

There have been so many times I wished our country could use its massive military resources for such noble goals as
protecting civilians and enforcing UN Security Council Resolutions. I'd be their greatest supporter. But I've
sat upon this committee for 10 years and I have seen our country repeatedly refuse to use to its military to save civilians from
slaughter.

I need only remind you of our country's shameful failure to intervene in
Rwanda in 1994 and in so doing we allowed 1,000,000 Rwandan men, women and
children to be butchered with axes and machetes in 100 days.

And, yes, we are the same country that abandoned the
people of Afghanistan to the Taliban, that abandoned the people of the Democratic Republic of Congo to
the invading Rwandans and the Ugandans, that abandoned the people of East
Timor to the invading Indonesians, that abandoned
the people of Sierra Leone
to the brutal hand chopping killers of the RUF, that
abandoned the people of
Chechnya to the brutal Russian Army, that abandoned
the people of the
Philippines to brutalities of Ferdinand Marcos, that
abandoned the people of
Chile to monstrous crimes of General Pinochet and so
on and so on.

But the President would have us believe that this
time things are different –
for once, he says, we're going to war to save
people's lives.

However, just last Sunday, September 15, 2002, the
Washington Post's lead
story carried the banner headline "In Iraqi War
Scenario, Oil is the Key
Issue." The article then went on to describe how US
oil companies were
looking forward to taking advantage of the oil
bonanza, which would follow
Saddam Hussein's removal from office. Apparently,
so the article says, CIA
Director James Woolsey, indicated that non-US oil
companies who sided with
Hussein would most likely be excluded from sharing
in Iraq's massive oil
reserves – reserves said to be second only to Saudi
Arabia.

And I find the current Bush fervor and alleged
urgent justifications for
attacking Iraq startling because I recall reading an
article from the London
Guardian on December 2, 2001 last year, which had a
banner headline "Secret
US Plan for Iraq War." The article, almost a year
old now, is interesting
because it reports that the President had already
ordered the CIA and his
senior military commanders to draw up detailed plans
for a military operation
against Iraq. The operational commander was General
Tommy Franks working out
of the US Central Command at McDill air force base
in Florida. Apparently,
other key players were, low and behold, the CIA
Director James Woolsey and
the Deputy Defense Secretary, Paul Wolfowitz.

What I found most incredible about the article,
especially after reading this
week's Washington Post article, was the last
sentence which said:

"The most adventurous ingredient in the anti-Iraqi
proposal is the use of US
ground troops . . . significant numbers of [US]
troops could also be called
on in the early stages of any rebellion to guard oil
fields around the Shia
port of Basra in southern Iraq."

Isn't it amazing the London Times didn't refer to US
troops guarding the new
parliament, or the schools or hospitals full of
ravaged civilians, or saving
the men, women and children brutalized under years
of Hussein's rule.

I wonder why the President hasn't talked about these
plans, which were being
cooked up nearly a year ago.

I learned this week from the Times of London that
Bush Administration plans
to spend some $200m on convincing a skeptical
American and world public that
the war on Iraq is justified. I didn't realize that
telling the truth would
be so expensive.

And surely if we were really interested today in the
truth about whether Iraq
has weapons of mass destruction wouldn't this
Committee want to hear from
Scott Ritter. I just cannot believe that he's not
here today.

Before we send our young men and women off to war,
we need to really make
sure that we're not sacrificing them so that rich
and powerful men can
prosecute a war for oil.
I love this country too much to see it abused this
way and I implore other
Members of Congress to join me in denouncing this
war of aggression.

Thank you.


Full analysis later on the whole damn situation.