>While I was unable to locate the text of Byrd's speech on the Senate
>floor Tuesday, the link link below is from an earlier speech that
>closely resembles Byrd's remarks on the Senate floor Tuesday.
The conclusion of a story by Todd Purdum and David Firestone in the Oct 5 NYT:
>The Bush administration wants Congress to put its stamp of approval
>on the Bush doctrine of preemptive strikes," said Mr. Byrd, whipping
>out his copy of the Constitution and insisting that it did not
>authorize such military action. "Are we going to present the face of
>America as the face of a bully that's ready to go out at high noon
>with both guns blazing, or maintain the face of America as a country
>that believes in justice and the rule of law, freedom, liberty and
>the rights of all people to work out their ultimate destiny?"
>
>But Mr. Warner said the history books were full of American military
>actions that were taken in the absence of a direct attack on the
>United States. Beginning with the Colombia-Panama engagement of
>1901, he said, presidents have dispatched troops more than a dozen
>times in ways that could be considered preemptive, including more
>recent interventions in Panama, Somalia and Kosovo.
Warner's right, isn't he?
Doug