A Letter to Senator Warner on the Iraq War Resolution:

[joemurphy]

Office of Senator John Warner
U.S. Senate
225 Russell Building
Washington, D.C. 20510

Re: Iraq War Resolution

Dear Senator Warner:

I’ve been watching your career ever since your marriage to Liz Taylor. I was greatly saddened when I read that it just didn’t work out. What a woman! She was great in “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.”

Even though your marriage to Liz turned out to be a flop, unlike a lot of people, I never blamed you. I’ve continued to remain a loyal fan of yours. I particularly liked watching you on C-Span when you helped President Bush get that Iraq War Resolution passed. You remember, it was right before the 2002 Midterm Elections, and just after the President came back from his month-long vacation at his Texas ranch. President Bush kept saying “There are no plans for war on my desk!” Ha, ha! That was a good one! It really fooled me! He probably just had those plans inside his desk and not on it! Ha, ha!

I know it wasn’t easy getting the War Resolution shoved through Congress so quickly, with Byrd and Kennedy and Durbin telling you to slow it down and generally giving you a hard time about it. As a long-time Republican voter, I was real proud of how you handled them and got it passed over their objections in near record time.

I still enjoy watching you whenever you’re on C-Span. I especially like listening to your speeches. You don’t sound like most of the other Republicans. When you address people, you always make a point of taking your time and saying polite things like: “As my esteemed and honored colleague from the great state of (fill in the name of a State here) well knows...” My grandfather Sandor Toth used to talk that way too. Old fashioned, stately, and formal. Of course it sounded different coming from Grandpa Toth in Hungarian, but it also sounds good when you do it in English too.

Actually, the way you talk in your Senate speeches reminds me a lot of one of my favorite actors, Burl Ives. He was in “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” too – playing the role of “Big Daddy.” Remember how he used to say: “I smell a strong odor of mendaaaaaaaaaacity!” (I liked how Burl would stretch out long words like “mendacity”). Did you borrow some of your speaking style from Big Daddy? Ha, ha! I bet you did!

Anyhow, from watching you, I know that you are an orderly, meticulous, and real careful sort of guy that hates little mistakes and that always pays a lot of careful attention to precise details. That’s what prompted me to write you this letter.

Given all that’s happened since you got that Iraq War Resolution passed, I thought you might want to take another look at it again and sharpen it up a little. I’m referring particularly to some of those “WHEREAS” clauses in the Resolution that explain why we had to go to war so fast. As things turned out, a lot of them weren’t quite right and I was thinking that if you retroactively amended them you could get everything neatened up for the sake of your role in future history. Anyway, here are a few examples of what I mean:

The following one, for instance, should now probably be deleted entirely:

“WHEREAS the efforts of international weapons inspectors, United States intelligence agencies, and Iraqi defectors led to the discovery that Iraq had large stockpiles of chemical weapons and a large scale biological weapons program, and that Iraq had an advanced nuclear weapons development program that was much closer to producing a nuclear weapon than intelligence reporting had previously indicated;”

See what I mean? I’m sure you’ll agree, that “WHEREAS” could use a little work.

And how about this one? In view of the fact that it turned out that Iraq actually destroyed all of their weapons of mass destruction back in 1991, you might want to do some cutting and pasting:

“WHEREAS Iraq, in direct and flagrant violation of the cease-fire, attempted to thwart the efforts of weapons inspectors to identify and destroy Iraq's weapons of mass destruction stockpiles and development capabilities, which finally resulted in the withdrawal of inspectors from Iraq on October 31, 1998;”

You might also want to review and revise this one a little:

“WHEREAS in Public Law 105-235 (August 14, 1998), Congress concluded that Iraq's continuing weapons of mass destruction programs threatened vital United States interests and international peace and security, declared Iraq to be in `material and unacceptable breach of its international obligations' and urged the President `to take appropriate action, in accordance with the Constitution and relevant laws of the United States, to bring Iraq into compliance with its international obligations';”

And, of course, this next one should probably just be eliminated:

“WHEREAS Iraq both poses a continuing threat to the national security of the United States and international peace and security in the Persian Gulf region and remains in material and unacceptable breach of its international obligations by, among other things, continuing to possess and develop a significant chemical and biological weapons capability, actively seeking a nuclear weapons capability, and supporting and harboring terrorist organizations...”

This next one should also probably be excised entirely since it was never really proved:

“WHEREAS the current Iraqi regime has demonstrated its continuing hostility toward, and willingness to attack, the United States, including by attempting in 1993 to assassinate former President Bush…”

Now this next one is probably OK -- as long as you add the phrase “in a Kurdish area outside the control of the Iraqi government” at the very end.

“WHEREAS members of al Qaida, an organization bearing responsibility for attacks on the United States, its citizens, and interests, including the attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, are known to be in Iraq;”

This following one is probably another candidate for scissoring:

“WHEREAS Iraq continues to aid and harbor other international terrorist organizations, including organizations that threaten the lives and safety of United States citizens;”

And, of course, there’s this one:

“WHEREAS Iraq's demonstrated capability and willingness to use weapons of mass destruction, the risk that the current Iraqi regime will either employ those weapons to launch a surprise attack against the United States or its Armed Forces or provide them to international terrorists who would do so, and the extreme magnitude of harm that would result to the United States and its citizens from such an attack, combine to justify action by the United States to defend itself; “

Well, I could go on and on, but you being the stickler for correctitude that I know you are, I’m sure you get my drift. Given your concern with America’s place in history and just on principles of general orderliness, I know you’ll want to get these and a lot of the other “WHEREASES” I haven’t mentioned in that Iraq War Resolution amended pronto!

So that’s it from here. You don’t have to send me a thank-you letter. I know you’d do the same for me if the shoe were on the other foot. Keep on doing the President’s work up there in Washington! We’re all rooting for you here at home!

Your admiring fan,

Lazlo Toth
Voting for Republicans (both unindicted and indicted) since 1952!

(Inspired by Don Novello’s Lazlo Toth Letters)