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Check this out.
I'm gonna be naughty and post this.
Kerry on Face the Nation 9/16/2002
SCHIEFFER: And to get the perspective from the other side of the aisle now, we go to Boston, Massachussets, Senator John Kerry.
Gloria?
BORGER: Senator Kerry, you heard what Senator McCain said about a congressional vote, perhaps the first or second week in October. Do you agree with that time table?
SEN. JOHN KERRY, D-MA: I think so. I think it should be on a short leash. I think we need to be clear to the United Nations that this is not something that can drag out.
But I think we have to recognize that what happened last week was a victory for those of us who have argued all along that you have to try to build the multilateral effort, even if it fails, even if you can't build it. You have to exhaust the possibilities here so that you have a legitimacy in your actions. And I am glad, all of us are, that the president made a forceful statement that reaches for that legitimacy.
SCHIEFFER: Well, you know, we were seeing before last week and before the president spoke a lot of Democrats saying that if we vote on this, we ought to put it off until after the election, because it would sort of remove the politics from it.
But I sense a shift in the Democratic position. I see now that Senator Daschle, for example, is saying he is ready to go to work now with the White House and with the Republicans in working out the language of the resolution.
KERRY: Bob, I think that what Senator Daschle and all of us are in favor of is putting before the Congress something that could get 100-to-nothing vote, something that says to the United Nations, look, we are really serious about this and we're all behind the effort to try to seek a consensus on dealing with Saddam Hussein.
That is not to say that we should necessarily put the final measures -- i.e., use of force or, you know, authorization to go to war -- before the United Nations has acted. I think it's a slap in the face, it's almost a contradictory move to, on the one hand, go to the United Nations, say we want you to act multilaterally, and then come back and do as the president did the other day and says he doesn't see how anybody can run for election saying wait on another body. I mean, that's completely contradictory.
We should go to the United Nations. We should do it in a short span of time.
We should really be serious and honest about our approach to the United Nations, so that we can bring those countries into this effort, because that's the way the United States of America is going to be stronger and that's the way our national security interest is protected.
SCHIEFFER: Let me just make sure that I understand exactly what you're saying, because what you seem to be saying here is that you would like to see Congress pass a resolution authorizing the United States to participate with other U.N. members in doing what is necessary to call Saddam Hussein to disarm, and that could include military action. But you're not saying the resolution should say, if you don't act, we're going to act anyway. Is that basically...
KERRY: Well, I think that's going to be implicit in anything that we do at this point in time, Bob. But I think if you want to have 100-to-nothing vote, if you want to have a vote that shows the American people are united in their concern about weapons of mass destruction and in their desire to have the world, the world, act in an appropriate way, then I think you try to approach it in order to build the greatest base of support.
The vote on use of force will come, depending on what Saddam Hussein does.
This is in his -- you know, this is his decision. He can decide.
And I think one of the things I want to emphasize here, Bob, in 1998 I stood up along with Senator Hagel and others, and we were very clear in our criticism of the expulsion of Ambassador Butler and the inspection team. And I said back in 1998, "We need to hold Saddam Hussein accountable. We need to use force if necessary to do that." So this is not a new position that many of us are moving to.
I believe that the administration, in fact, has waited almost too long to begin to focus on the issue of proliferation and to begin to enforce it. And now that they've done it in the month before elections, they've put this into a political context that becomes dangerous for their own goals.
I want the same thing the president of the United States wants. I want Saddam Hussein held accountable. But I want it done in a way that builds the maximum amount of support in our country and particularly, hopefully, brings other nations to the effort.
BORGER: So you are saying, Senator, two separate votes here?
KERRY: I think if you have to have any vote, the first vote would be to impress on the United Nations that all of the Congress wants them involved and, if necessary, give us the license to make choices afterwards.
If you're really making a decision about invading or going to war, there still are unanswered questions that the president himself has not put before us.
For instance, Condoleezza Rice last Sunday said on national television and again talking with us on the Hill this week, that the president himself hasn't decided what he's going to do.
There are major questions of intelligence assessments. There are questions of who is going to be there and how much will it cost in the post effort.
I think -- look, I'm, I am absolutely prepared to hold Saddam Hussein accountable, as are most of my colleagues, I believe, maybe all of them. But we want to do this in a thoughtful, intelligent way that begins to address to the country many of the concerns people have. And I think that's what we're asking for. Sometimes process is important. And going to war, I think you want to build the maximum amount of legitimacy.
I think we will do it and can do it and I have great agreement with John McCain about the capacity of the United States to do this, but let's do in the a way that maximizes our ability to be successful and minimizes the misunderstandings, the dissent and confrontation here at home.
BORGER: How likely right now do you think that this is going to be resolved without the use of military force?
KERRY: That depends on Saddam Hussein. I mean, the ball -- look, one of the reasons that I think it is important for all of us to join together here is that this man has proven himself a master of miscalculation.
And he is even miscalculating right now. It is his miscalculation that poses the greatest danger here. I would disagree with John McCain that it's the actual weapons of mass destruction he may use against us; it's what he may do in another invasion of Kuwait or in a miscalculation about the Kurds or a miscalculation about Iran, or particularly Israel. Those are the things that I think present the greatest danger.
He may even miscalculate and slide these weapons off to terrorist groups to invite them to be a surrogate to use them against the United States. It's the miscalculation that poses the greatest threat.
But I also think, and this is another very -- you haven't heard this, I think, in the course of the last week. We cannot allow this discussion of Iraq to hide the original purpose of our mobilization, which is Osama bin Laden and Al Qaida. And we particularly cannot allow it to shift off of the debate in this country a huge number of unattended issues. Our economy is hurting badly.
SCHIEFFER: All right.
KERRY: We have people losing work, we have health care, education. We need to keep those issues on the table at the same time.
SCHIEFFER: Senator, thank you so much. I'm sorry, we have to end it there.
Wow! Lot's of good stuff in there.
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