Tom Udall: “the House is engaged in a great and serious debate on an issue of incredible importance; and, given the strong arguments…”

“the House is engaged in a great and serious debate on an issue of incredible importance; and, given the strong arguments on both sides, we may have missed the fact that we actually agree on many points. We all agree with the President that Saddam Hussein is a brutal dictator. We all agree with the President that both Iraq and the world would be better off without him. We all agree with the President that Iraq must be rid of its weapons of mass destruction. So, as the President said on Monday night, we all agree on the goal. The issue is how best to achieve it. Right now, we have two choices. We can vote for the resolution before us, or we can vote against it. If we vote for it we are, in effect, granting the President unprecedented authority to launch a unilateral, preemptive strike against Iraq. Much has been made of the fact that the resolution is not the blank check originally submitted by the President, that concessions have been made, that under the current resolution the President is required to exhaust all diplomatic measures before launching an attack on Iraq, that the President is required to give Congress prior notice of such an attack. Rhetoric and semantics aside, this is still a blank check. The President alone makes the final determination of exhaustion of diplomatic remedies. This resolution simply adds a step to the process. It will not have an impact on the final decision. It will not give Congress a greater role in the decision making.”