From The Washington Post
Mike Thompson
October 4, 2002
The first time I was criticized for going overseas, I was a 19-year-old Army airborne soldier returning from Vietnam. Antiwar protesters tried to tip over the bus carrying me and other wounded soldiers from Travis Air Force Base to Letterman General Hospital.
Elected officials in Washington had sent me halfway around the world to a place most of them had never seen to fight a war most Americans did not understand.
Thirty years later our nation is again at the brink. Decisions will soon be made in Congress that may send our young soldiers to a foreign land from which many might not return. This time I will be one of the elected officials making the call.
In the past several days the name-calling has returned. "Baby killer" has been replaced by "traitor." This time it's from conservative radio talk show hosts questioning my fact-finding trip to Iraq last week.
I didn't have to go. I could have been satisfied with the classified briefings I receive as a member of the House Armed Services Committee -- briefings that raise more questions than answers.
I wanted to see and feel the country before deciding whether to commit our troops. By getting my feet on the ground, I hoped to gain a better understanding of what can be done to increase our national security by stabilizing this region of the world.
Respected generals who have testified before Congress know that a war with Iraq today would be an urban battle with high casualties on both sides. As a combat veteran, I wanted to see what our 19-year-old soldiers could face.
An invasion could require a U.S. occupation force in Iraq for several years. I needed to see how that force would be received by Iraqi civilians, who are living in a state of human crisis created by Saddam Hussein's tyranny.
Though I met with the deputy prime minister, the foreign minister and members of their legislature to tell them they need to give U.N. weapons inspectors immediate and unrestricted access in order to avert war, I was not naive enough to believe I could affect their decisions.
What I really wanted to see was the human infrastructure that would be left behind in the event of a regime change. What I saw were the roots of terrorism that have been lost in the emotional and political drumbeats of war.
Children are dying from curable diseases because they have no access to medicine. Raw sewage contaminates drinking water. It's appalling how a nation once so rich is now a wasteland of disease and despair.
Hussein's brutal dictatorship must shoulder responsibility for these conditions. But I returned convinced that if we are truly serious about national security and winning the war against terrorism, we need to eliminate the sense of hopelessness that serves as a host for parasitic terrorist cells. That will take more than American might. It will take international will.
The strongest military power in the history of our planet isn't enough to protect a New York transit bus from a suicide bomber. As Americans, our strength has always been our ability to help others experience the benefits of freedom.
Providing any president with a blank check for a unilateral attack without exhausting all diplomatic efforts and gaining allied support would be a great disservice to our 200 years of constitutional democracy. It would also squander an international opportunity to defeat terrorism where it breeds.
I expected the Iraqi government to try to take advantage of the trip to further its propaganda assault, and I remained on constant guard. During two live interviews with CNN, the satellite feed was cut as I was criticizing the human cost this dictator has inflicted on his people.
Back home, however, I never expected conservative partisans to try to use my State Department-licensed trip to fuel their own propaganda machine.
Regardless of their efforts, I still have a lot of questions, and I plan to ask them. Those I represent and the 19-year-olds who fight our battles deserve no less.
The writer is a Democratic representative from California.
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