Former US senator denounces war to Tufts audience

Former US senator Dale Bumpers denounced President George Bush's promotion of military action against Iraq and discussed the undercurrents driving other policy debates in the nation's capitol during a speech on at Tufts on Monday.

Amongst discussion of issues such as terrorism, Iraq, and the environment, Bumpers, a Democrat who represented Arkansas in Washington from 1975 until 1999, told students and faculty that he will have a hard time "going to bed every night knowing that three billion people around the world hate us."

Public support for the President on the Iraqi issue, Bumpers said, is based on the idea that he has access to classified information that is pivotal to the Iraqi situation. "I believe that the country supports the president because they think he knows something they don't," he said. "He doesn't know much of anything."

"Bush wants war and a regime change; he wants Saddam out."

Bumpers, a former World War II Marine sergeant and two-term governor of Arkansas, has been celebrated for his ardent activism against wasteful military programs and his dedication to the protection of America's natural habitats.

Tufts' International Environment and Resource Policy Program (IERPP) sponsored his speech, which was hosted at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and entitled "Power on the Potomac: Global Savior or Global Scourge?"

The visit was organized by William Moomaw, a professor at Fletcher who worked with Bumpers while he was a senator.

"I think many students are cynical about politics and politicians," Moomaw said when explaining the decision to invite Bumpers to Tufts.

"I wanted to show the Tufts community a refreshing look on politics. Dale Bumpers has a lot of integrity and a strong moral compass. He follows his inner sense and only votes with his conscious."

Moomaw referred to Bumper's voting record, which included support for returning the Panama Canal. He was the only senator from the South who voted for the measure.

Although Bumpers is acclaimed mainly for his environmental advocacy and legislation, the former senator spoke extensively on the current situation in Iraq.

Bumpers does not see the proliferation of nuclear weapons in Iraq as an immediate threat to US security. "If Saddam [Hussein] has or can get nuclear weapons, he won't be able to deliver them" because he lacks the means to do so, the former senator said. Delving into war with Iraq with only the support of Great Britain will leave the US more vulnerable than it is presently, Bumpers said.

Hussein will only "cut a deal with al Qaeda... if it means that the nuclear weapons will be used against Israel," the enemy of the Middle East, he said. "If he has not done it yet, what makes the president think he will make a deal now?"

Iraqi oil is no longer essential to the US, Bumpers said, therefore "no longer a valid reason for war." Much of US oil now comes from Venezuela, Mexico, and Russia, according to the former senator.

Democratic senators were reluctant to go against the president and take a harder stance on Iraq because of their concerns about reelection and maintaining a senate majority, Bumpers believes. "I am reluctant to say this, but if the election had been 30 days ago I think there would be a very different vote."

Amidst rising unemployment rates and increasing poverty within the US, Bumpers questioned the government's concentration on military spending. "When I was in the Senate, I thought we were spending too much on defense, and now we are spending more than ever," he said.

Bumpers emphasized the increase in poverty rates over the last year, during which 1.2 million more people have fallen below the poverty line.

"Forty-three million people are without health insurance, and the government is spending its money on the military," he said, expressing his concern about the $50 billion increase in the 2003 budget.

Bumpers also addressed Bush's environmental policy. "We consider ourselves the moral leaders of the world, yet the president is the one that is destroying it," he said.

Bumpers voiced displeasure with Bush's order to increase logging, his reversal of President Clinton's Antiquity Act to save national parks and forests, and his rejection of vehicle fuel efficiency laws.

The former senator served on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, and as chairman of the Parks and Public Lands Subcommittee.