Congressional Record: June 24, 2003 (Senate)
Page S8398-S8400
Prewar Intelligence Investigation
Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, the news is just on the wires that six
British troops have been killed near Basra in Iraq. Every day--every
day--brings us sad tidings of American and/or Allied troops being
killed in Iraq.
How much longer--how much longer, Mr. President--are our American
fighting men and women going to have to remain in harm's way in a
foreign land? How much longer are our National guardsmen and women and
reservists going to have to be away from home?
The President announced not too long ago that major hostilities had
ended. Were we told by this administration how long our military forces
will be required to run these terrible risks that daily confront them
in this biblical land of Mesopotamia, land between the two great
rivers? I often asked the question, before the war began, What is going
to be the cost? What is the plan? What is the administration's plan?
What about the morning after the war ends?
No announcement has been made at this point that the war has ended,
only that major hostilities no longer exist. And then there were public
disagreements as to how many Americans would be needed in Iraq to bring
about a safe and secure society.
I try to put myself in the place of a father or a husband of one of
our military personnel in Iraq. I try to imagine the pain and the
suffering on the part of those who wait--who wait--at home for the
return of their loved ones.
Last fall, the White House released a national security strategy that
called for an end to the doctrines of deterrence and containment that
have been a hallmark of American foreign policy for more than half a
century.
This new national security strategy is based upon preemptive war--
something unheard of in the past experiences, practices, and policies
of our Nation--preemptive war against those who might threaten our
security.
Such a strategy of striking first against possible dangers is heavily
reliant upon interpretation of accurate and timely intelligence. If we
are going to hit first, based on perceived dangers, the perceptions had
better be accurate. If our intelligence is faulty, we may launch
preemptive wars against countries that do not pose a real threat
against us or we may overlook countries that do pose real threats to
our security, allowing us no chance to pursue diplomatic solutions to
stop a crisis before it escalates to war. In either case, lives could
be needlessly lost. In other words, we had better be certain that we
can discern the imminent threats from the false alarms.
Just 96 days ago, as of June 24, President Bush announced that he had
initiated a war to ``disarm Iraq, to free its people and to defend the
world from grave danger.'' The President told the world:
Our nation enters this conflict reluctantly--yet, our
purpose is sure. The people of the United States and our
friends and allies will not live at the mercy of an outlaw
regime that threatens the peace with weapons of mass
[destruction].
The President has since announced that major combat operations
concluded on May 1. He said:
Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the battle
of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed.
Since then, Mr. President, the United States has been recognized by
the international community as the occupying power in Iraq. And yet we
have not found any evidence that would confirm the officially stated
reason that our country was sent to war; namely, that Iraq's weapons of
mass destruction constituted a grave threat to the United States--a
grave threat to the United States.
We have heard a lot about revisionist history from the White House of
late in answer to those who question whether there was ever a real
threat from Iraq. But it is the President who appears to me to be
intent on revising history.
There is an abundance of clear and unmistakable evidence that the
administration sought to portray Iraq as a direct, deadly, and imminent
threat to the American people. But there is a great difference between
the handpicked intelligence that was presented by the administration to
Congress and the American people when compared against what we have
actually discovered in Iraq. This Congress and the American people, who
sent us here, are entitled to an explanation from this administration.
On January 28, 2003, President Bush said in his State of the Union
Address:
The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein
recently sought significant quantities of uranium from
Africa.
Yet, according to news reports, the CIA knew this claim was false as
early as March 2002. In addition, the International Atomic Energy
Agency has since discredited this allegation.
On February 5, Secretary of State Colin Powell told the United
Nations Security Council:
Our conservative estimate is that Iraq today has a
stockpile of between 100 and 500 tons of chemical weapons
agents. That is enough to fill 16,000 battlefield rockets.
But, the truth is, to date we have not found any of this material,
nor those thousands of rockets loaded with chemical weapons.
On February 8, President Bush told the Nation:
We have sources that tell us that Saddam Hussein recently
authorized Iraqi field commanders to use chemical weapons--
the very weapons the dictator tells us he does not have.
Well, I say to my fellow Senators, we are all relieved that such
weapons were not used, but it has not yet been explained why the Iraqi
Army did not use them. Did the Iraqi Army flee their positions before
chemical weapons could be used? If so, why were the weapons not left
behind? Or is it that the army was never issued chemical weapons?
We need answers. We need answers to these and other such questions.
On March 16, the Sunday before the war began, in an interview with
Tim Russert, Vice President Cheney said the Iraqis want ``to get rid of
Saddam Hussein and they will welcome as liberators the United States
when we come to do that.'' Vice President Cheney said the Iraqis want
``to get rid of Saddam Hussein and they will welcome as liberators the
United States when we come to do that.''
He added:
. . . the vast majority of them would turn Saddam Hussein
in in a minute if, in fact, they thought they could do so
safely.
But, today Iraqi cities remain in disorder. Our troops are under
attack as well as our allies. Our occupation government lives and works
in fortified compounds, and we are still trying to determine the fate
of the ousted murderous dictator.
On March 30, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, during the height
of the war, said of the search for weapons of mass destruction:
[[Page S8399]]
We know where they are. They're in the area around Tikrit
and Baghdad and east, west, south, and north somewhat.
Well, Mr. President, Baghdad fell to our troops on April 9 and Tikrit
on April 14, and the intelligence about which Secretary of Defense
Rumsfeld spoke has not led us to any weapons of mass destruction.
Whether or not intelligence reports were bent, stretched, or massaged
to make Iraq look like an imminent threat to the United States, it is
clear that the administration's rhetoric played upon the well-founded
fears of the American public about future acts of terrorism. But upon
close examination, many of these statements have nothing to do with
intelligence because they are, at root, just sound bites based on
conjecture. They are designed to prey upon public fear.
The face of Osama bin Laden morphed into that of Saddam Hussein.
President Bush carefully blurred these images in his State of the Union
Address. Listen to this quote from the President's State of the Union
Address:
Imagine those 19 hijackers with other weapons and other
plans--this time armed by Saddam Hussein. It would take one
vial, one canister, one crate slipped into this country to
bring a day of horror like none we have ever known.
Judging by this speech, not only is the President confusing al-Qaida
and Iraq, but he also appears to give a vote of no confidence to our
homeland security efforts. Isn't the White House the brains behind the
Department of Homeland Security? Isn't the administration supposed to
be stopping those vials, canisters, and crates from entering our
country rather than trying to scare our fellow citizens half to death
about them?
Not only did the administration warn about more hijackers carrying
deadly chemicals, the White House even went so far as to suggest that
the time it would take for U.N. inspectors to find solid smoking gun
evidence of Saddam's illegal weapons would put the United States at
greater risk of nuclear attack from Iraq.
National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice was quoted as saying on
September 9, 2002, by the Los Angeles Times:
We don't want the ``smoking gun'' to be a mushroom cloud.
``Threat by Iraq Grows,'' this is the headline that was in the Los
Angeles Times.
Well, talk about hype. Mushroom clouds? Where is the evidence for
this? Where is the evidence for that hype? There isn't any.
On September 26, 2002, just 2 weeks before Congress voted on the
resolution to allow the President to invade Iraq and 6 weeks before the
midterm elections, President Bush himself built the case that Iraq was
plotting to attack the United States.
After meeting with members of Congress on that date, the President
said:
The danger to our country is grave. The danger to our
country is growing. The Iraqi regime possesses biological and
chemical weapons. . . . The regime is seeking a nuclear bomb,
and with fissile material, could build one within a year.
Well, these are the President's words. He said that Saddam Hussein is
seeking a nuclear bomb. Have we found any evidence to date of this
chilling allegation? No.
But President Bush continued on that autumn day:
The dangers we face will only worsen from month to month
and from year to year. To ignore these threats is to
encourage them. And when they have fully materialized, it may
be too late to protect ourselves and our friends and our
allies. By then, the Iraqi dictator would have the means to
terrorize and dominate the region. Each passing day could be
the one on which the Iraqi regime gives anthrax or VX--nerve
gas--or some day a nuclear weapon to a terrorist ally.
Yet, 7 weeks after declaring victory in the war against Iraq, we have
seen nary a shred of evidence to support the President's claims of
grave, dangerous chemical weapons, links to al-Qaida, or nuclear
weapons.
Just days before a vote on a resolution that handed the President
unprecedented war powers, President Bush stepped up the scare tactics.
On October 7, just 4 days before the October vote in the Senate on the
war resolution, the President had this to say:
We know that Iraq and the al-Qaida terrorist network share
a common enemy--the United States of America. We know that
Iraq and al-Qaida have had high-level contacts that go back a
decade.
He continued:
We've learned that Iraq has trained al-Qaida members in
bomb-making and poisons and deadly gases. . . . Alliance with
terrorists could allow the Iraqi regime to attack America
without leaving any fingerprints.
President Bush also elaborated on claims of Iraq's nuclear program
when he said:
The evidence indicates that Iraq is reconstituting its
nuclear weapons program. Saddam Hussein has held numerous
meetings with Iraqi nuclear scientists, a group he calls his
``nuclear mujahideen''--his nuclear holy warriors. . . . If
the Iraqi regime is able to produce, buy, or steal an amount
of highly enriched uranium a little larger than a single
softball, he could have a nuclear weapon in less than a year.
Wasn't that enough to keep you awake, Senators? This is the kind of
pumped-up intelligence and outrageous rhetoric that was given to the
American people to justify a war with Iraq. This is the same kind of
hyped evidence that was given to Congress to sway its vote for war on
October 11, 2002.
We hear some voices saying, well, why should we care? After all, the
United States won the war, didn't it? Saddam Hussein is no more. Iraq
is no longer a threat. He is either dead or on the run, so what does it
matter if reality does not reveal the same grim picture that was so
carefully painted before the war. So what. So what if the menacing
characterizations that conjured up visions of mushroom clouds and
American cities threatened with deadly germs and chemicals were
overdone. So what.
Our sons and daughters who serve in uniform answered the call to
duty. They were sent to the hot sands of the Middle East to fight in a
war that has already cost the lives of 194 Americans to this moment,
thousands of innocent civilians, and unknown numbers of Iraqi soldiers.
Our troops are still at risk. Hardly a day goes by that there is not
another attack on the troops who are trying to restore order to a
country teetering on the brink of anarchy. When are they coming home?
The President told the American people we were compelled to go to war
to secure our country from a grave threat. Are we any safer today than
we were on March 18, 2003? Our Nation has been committed to rebuilding
a country ravaged by war and tyranny, and the cost of that task is
being paid for in blood and in treasure every day.
It is in the compelling national interest to examine what we were
told about the threat from Iraq. This is not revisionist history. These
words are plain English words that I have quoted. It is in the
compelling national interest to know if the intelligence was faulty. It
is in the compelling national interest to know if the intelligence was
distorted. It is in the national interest to know if the intelligence
was manipulated.
Mr. President, Congress must face this issue squarely. Congress
should begin immediately an investigation into the intelligence that
was presented to the American people about the prewar estimates of
Saddam's weapons of mass destruction and the way in which that
intelligence might have been misused. This is no time for a timid,
tippy-toe Congress. Congress has a responsibility to act in the
national interest and to protect the American people, and we must get
to the bottom of this matter.
Although some timorous steps have been taken in the past few days to
begin a review of this intelligence--I must watch my words carefully,
for I may be tempted to use the word ``investigation'' or ``inquiry''
to describe this review, and those are terms which I am told are not
supposed to be used--the proposed measures appear to fall short of what
the situation requires. We are already shading our terms about how to
describe the proposed review of intelligence: cherry-picking words to
give the American people the impression that the Government is fully in
control of the situation, and that there is no reason to ask tough
questions. This is the same problem that got us into this controversy
about slanted intelligence reports. Word games, lots and lots of word
games.
This is no game. For the first time in our history, the United States
has gone to war because of intelligence reports claiming that a country
posed a threat to our Nation. Congress should not be content to use
standard operating procedures to look into this extraordinary matter.
[[Page S8400]]
We should accept no substitute for a full, bipartisan investigation
by Congress into the issue of our prewar intelligence on the threat
from Iraq and the use of that intelligence.
The purpose of such an investigation is not to play preelection year
politics, nor is it to engage in what some might call ``revisionist
history.'' Rather, it is to get at the truth. The longer questions are
allowed to fester about what our intelligence knew about Iraq, and when
our intelligence knew it, the greater the risk that American people,
whom we are elected to serve, will lose confidence in our Government.
This looming crisis of trust is not limited to the public. Many of my
colleagues were willing to trust the administration and vote to
authorize war against Iraq. Many Members of this body trusted so much
that they gave the President sweeping authority to commence war. As
President Reagan famously said, ``Trust, but verify.'' Despite my
opposition, the Senate voted to blindly trust the President with
unprecedented--unprecedented, unprecedented--power to declare war.
Shame. While the reconstruction continues, so do the questions, and it
is time to verify.
I have served the people of West Virginia in Congress for half a
century. I have witnessed deceit and scandal, coverup and aftermath. I
have seen from both parties Presidents who once enjoyed great
popularity among the people leave office in disgrace because they
misled the American people. I say to this administration: Do not circle
the wagons. Do not discourage the seeking of truth in these matters.
The American people have questions that need to be answered about why
we went to war with Iraq. To attempt to deny the relevance of these
questions is to trivialize the people's trust and confidence.
The business of intelligence is secretive by necessity, but our
Government is open by design. We must be straight with the American
people. Congress has the obligation to investigate the use of
intelligence information by the administration in the open so that the
American people can see that those who exercise power, especially the
awesome power of preemptive war, must be held accountable. We must not
go down the road of coverup. That is the road to ruin.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
