President Orders Saddam To `Get Out Of Dodge'

BUSH STAGES `SHOOTOUT' AT IRAQ CORRAL
President Orders Saddam To `Get Out Of Dodge'
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Monday, March 17, 2003

Congressman Jesse L. Jackson, Jr. - using language similar to the cowboy and gunslinger image this President likes to project - said, "President Bush tonight announced that he is staging a `high noon' shootout at the Iraq corral in 48 hours. President Bush has ordered Saddam Hussein to `get out of Dodge.' Without UN sanction and with a new doctrine of preemption, the former owner of the Texas Rangers is now acting as the Lone Ranger. Unlike his father's success at building a United Nation's `coalition of the willing' in 1991, this President's failure to get a UN resolution means he is going to war with a `coalition of the wanting.' His actions also shred Secretary of State Colin Powell's military doctrine.

"For over a decade, the Powell Doctrine has served presidents of both parties as a guidepost in determining whether or not American Armed Forces should be committed to battle. As articulated in a 1992 article in Foreign Affairs magazine, Colin Powell provided a prudent template for judging the acceptability of a proposed military action by the U.S. The Powell Doctrine posed several questions:

* Is a vital national security interest threatened?
* Do we have a clear attainable objective?
* Have the risks and costs been fully and frankly analyzed?
* Have all other non-violent policy means been fully exhausted?
* Is there a plausible exit strategy to avoid endless entanglement?
* Have the consequences of our action been fully considered?
* Is the action supported by the American people?
* Do we have genuine broad international support?

"Each question posed by Colin Powell, when applied to Iraq, renders a negative answer - which means Bush has shredded the Powell Doctrine. The Powell Doctrine is dead!

"Finally," Congressman Jackson said, "our lawyers have gone back into the Federal Court of Appeals in Boston to challenge the President's authority to wage war without a declaration from Congress."

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