The following is a statement from U.S. Senate nominee Alexi Giannoulias regarding Congressman Mark Kirk’s role in continuing to push for the Iraq war even as members of his own party were raising concerns about the use of faulty intelligence.

“As an author of the Iraq war resolution and early booster of the war, Congressman Kirk continued to push the war even as members of his own party were calling for an investigation into the use of faulty intelligence. 

“It appears that rather than joining the bipartisan group of Senators who decided the truth was more important than the politics of saving face, Congressman Kirk used his position in the Navy Reserve to falsely imply he had classified information that others did not, then he repeated another set of false statements aimed at misleading our nation into war.

“The bottom line: Congressman Kirk can’t handle the truth. First came lies about his military record, and now there are lies about seeing ‘direct’ evidence of non-existent WMD.  His lack of judgment and honesty helped spur a war that has cost thousands of American lives, squandered billions of taxpayer dollars, and adversely affected our ability to respond decisively to the true threat of al Qaeda in Afghanistan.”

 THE KIRK IRAQ TIMELINE:

September 2002: Kirk is an early booster of the war in Iraq.

“‘This is a growing national security threat,’ said Kirk, a former legal counsel to the House international relations panel. ‘Iraq is back. It’s clear the weapon of choice for terrorists is a nuclear one. That would kill 3 million people, not 3,000.’… Kirk, who flew patrol missions over Iraq while a Naval Reserves officer, admitted he hasn’t seen a groundswell of support for an Iraqi invasion. But, Kirk said, the nation needs to brace itself for a foreign policy change toward preemptive action against nations that pose nuclear threat, a switch as major as joining NATO was more than 50 years ago.”  [Daily Herald, 9/5/02]

September 2002: Kirk is chosen by President Bush for a working group tasked with crafting the Iraq war resolution and moving it through Congress. [National Journal's CongressDaily, 9/19/02]

October 2002: Kirk says that he saw classified information supporting the need for a U.S. invasion of Iraq.

“Kirk said he has seen classified information that convinced him the resolution was needed.” Later the paper reported that Kirk had “said he had seen ‘direct’ evidence that Hussein presented a threat.”  [Chicago Daily Herald, 10/27/02; Chicago Daily Herald, 10/8/04]

June 2003: As Senate Republicans launch an investigation into the use of faulty intelligence to justify a rush to war, Kirk takes to the House floor to say he is confident that WMD exist.

“No weapons of mass destruction in Iraq? We know to a moral certitude of such weapons, how do we know? Saddam Hussein told us on December 7 of last year, he told the U.N. That he owned 30,000 chemical weapons. But he forgot where he put them. We have not even found the chemical weapons that Saddam admitted to the U.N. he made.  There are over 500 WMD sites in Iraq and we’ve inspected less than half of them. Remember Dr. Hussein Camel? The U.N. inspected Iraq for four years in 1991 and 1995 and found no nuclear programs. Dr. Camel then told us that 40,000 Iraqis worked on nuclear weapons but our intelligence missed it all. WM in Iraq, it is inevitable that a final chapter will be written in this story. And as Paul Harvey would say, and then we will say, and now for the rest of the story.”  [House Session, 6/5/03]