Iowa Peace Groups Dialogue With Sen. Tom Harkin


	Sen. Tom Harkin takes notes as one of his constituents, John Tuzcu, speaks during a dialogue in Des Moines (Photo M. Gillespie).

ABOUT 50 representatives of Iowa peace and social justice organizations from across the state met with Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA) for a dialogue in Des Moines on Sept. 29.

“It seems to me that we’ve got two things,” Harkin told the crowd during his prepared remarks. “One, we need to have a timetable on when we get the troops out of Iraq. To me, that is a legitimate thing that we can do.”

However, according to the popular liberal Democrat, who served five terms in the House of Representatives before being elected to the Senate in 1984, ending funding for the war is something else again.

“Cutting off funding is hard,” Harkin said. “Now, we’re going to try to circumscribe it, [but] money is fungible,” he explained, pointing out that the administration can move money around in support of its plans for the prosecution of the war.

“The Department of the Army and the president have a lot of leeway in how they use this money,” said Harkin.

“I want to reassure you. Don’t think that we haven’t thought about this,” he said. “A lot of other people have worked on this to try to figure something out, and, it’s not easy.”

But many in the senator’s audience were not reassured. “Senator, you know there’s enough money in the pipeline to bring all the troops home safe if they really wanted to pull them out,” said Frank Cordaro of the Des Moines Catholic Worker Community. Cordaro pointed to research conducted by Jeff Leys of Voices for Creative Non-Violence regarding funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Like most of the activists who came to speak with the senator, Cordaro was well prepared to discuss funding for the war in Iraq and a host of other, related issues. Several of those present expressed other concerns about the Middle East, Southwest Asia, and across the Muslim world.

Jeffrey Weiss, peace education director for the American Friends Service Committee’s Des Moines office, sought to draw Harkin’s attention to the potentially disastrous consequences of a U.S. attack on Iran.

Weiss said Iran might react by “stopping the flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz, attacking oil installations in the Gulf, and arming allied militias in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“Given this extremely frightening time in our history,” Weiss continued, “we call upon you, Senator Harkin, to do whatever you can do to rescind the original war authorization given to the president after Sept. 11.”

Maureen McCue, coordinator of the Iowa Chapter of Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR), was one of many participants who drove two hours from Iowa City to take part in the dialogue. McCue, whose concerns reflected a global perspective, told Harkin that war between the United States and Iran would be disastrous for an already inflamed Middle East.

“The longer we occupy Iraq, threaten Iran, and ignore looming climate threats, the more people will suffer and die needlessly, and the greater the risk that we reach a point of no return as far as the inevitability of catastrophic climate change,” McCue stated.

She told her senator that PSR is calling for bringing the troops home safely, averting war with Iran, and rebuilding international alliances necessary to create a healthier and more secure world.

Harkin said he shared his constituents’ concerns about “the drumbeat” for an attack on Iran. He characterized the Kyl-Leiberman Resolution, which designated Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps a terrorist organization, as “very bad.”

“In fact, what passed was bad enough—you should have seen what went before... [The original language] was almost a declaration of war against Iran,” said Harkin, one of 19 Senate Democrats, along with two Republicans and one Independent, to vote against the resolution.

“We have never, ever before in our Congress declared the military force of another country a terrorist organization,” he told his constituents.

A former U.S. Navy pilot, Harkin spoke of his concerns about the readiness of U.S. military forces and about public perceptions of military service after seven years of the Bush-Cheney administration.

“The president says he’s going to take these 5,700 troops out by Christmas. Well, the reason he’s doing it is because there’s no replacements,” Harkin said. “We’re paying huge bonuses to get kids to come into the military right now. We’re sending them back for second and third tours. We are stretched so thin.…I think what Bush is doing is ruining our military,” he stated, adding that the number of military academy applications coming into his office is the lowest ever.

Later, in response to a participant who raised the issue of impeachment, Harkin said he had discussed the possibility of the impeachment of Vice President Dick Cheney with congressional colleagues.

“Cheney was the architect of all this,” said Harkin, apparently referring to the unpopular war in Iraq and the larger crisis in the Middle East. With regard to President George W. Bush and Cheney, Harkin said, “They have turned everything on its head.”

Suggesting that impeachment proceedings would not be the most productive use of the Congress’s time, Harkin indicated that he is expecting and looking forward to big changes in official Washington.

“There is going to be a tsunami next year,” said Harkin.

For information on war funding visit <www.vcnv.org/occupation-project/resources>.

—Michael Gillespie