Congressional Record: January 6, 2005 (Senate)
Page S37-S39
IRAQ
Mr. DAYTON. Last week, Senator Lieberman and I traveled to Iraq, to
Baghdad. When I visited Iraq a year and a half ago, our Senate
delegation in Baghdad and other cities, Basra and Tikrit, boarded armed
Humvees and with military escort drove throughout those respective
cities. Last week, we were confined for security reasons to the heavily
fortified green zone, which is the command post of the United States
military, our Government representatives, and the Iraqi government.
The necessity for those restrictions was made apparent because one of
the opposition political leaders with whom we were supposed to meet and
where we envisioned traveling for 5 minutes outside of the green zone
was the target of an assassination attempt the previous day. He was not
harmed, but a suicide bomber killed himself and nine other Iraqis
outside the location where the meeting was to occur, which underscores
the perilous nature of the environment and the impossibility of
providing the necessary and complete security for our own forces who
are performing heroically and continue to risk their lives, and in some
cases give up their lives, tragically, to protect the Iraqi people from
the insurgent forces which are brutal and sometimes lethally effective
in what they are intending to do in that particular country.
Sunday, I had the occasion to meet with a few hundred Minnesotans,
family members of loved ones who are presently serving in Iraq. They
asked the same question over and over again: When are our husbands,
wives, sons, fathers, mothers, coming home?
Although I opposed the Iraq war resolution in October of 2002 and
continue to believe, unfortunately, we have on an overall basis
weakened our national security, not strengthened it by our action, we
are there, with 150,000 of our Armed Forces committed. It is imperative
we succeed. It is also imperative that we start to devise--we should
have already--a strategy to bring our troops home safely as soon as
possible with the victory secure. The only way victory will be
ultimately secured is by the Iraqi people.
When Senator Lieberman and I met with the Deputy Prime Minister of
Iraq he said exactly that: The security of Iraq can only be gained by
the Iraqi people. The process from being subject to a brutal dictator,
tyrannical oppression for over a quarter of a century, to self-
determining democracy is an enormous social transformation, one that
will probably take several years.
When we justify, by those who are responsible for our continued
presence in Iraq, what we are doing there, they need to be very clear
about the parameters. First, we were looking for weapons of mass
destruction which turned out not to exist there. Then it was an alleged
link between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida which has never been
demonstrated to exist. Then it was opposing an evil dictator, which
Saddam Hussein certainly was, which was achieved in the first 3 weeks
of magnificent effort by our military. For the last 21 months it has
been protecting as much as possible the country and protecting the time
necessary for the Iraqi people to form a government, which they are in
the process of doing.
Holding the election on January 30 as scheduled is essential to doing
that. Training and equipping the Iraqi forces--police, military,
national guard--to be able to do what the people of any country have to
do to have a functional country under any form of government, which is
to protect and defend their own country, has been regretfully a very
slow process. I asked the United States military command and our
civilian leadership in Iraq as well as the Iraqi Government authorities
how far they thought we had progressed from a starting point to 100
percent Iraqi self-sufficiency regarding their own self-security and
the answer was variously between 40 and 50 percent. We have initiated
and engaged in and this Congress has funded to the full extent
requested by the administration the Iraqi security training programs
for over a year, about 15 or 16 months.
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It is obviously a difficult assignment, given that the previous
military structure of the country was removed by the Provisional
Authority, but that decision has been made and now that process of
retraining new forces has been underway for 15, 16 months and we are
told it is not even half way there.
The Iraqi people need to be responsible for their own country. They
must be responsible for their own country. They must decide to stand up
for themselves. Many are doing so and even giving their lives to
conduct this upcoming election and engaging in various security
actions.
But the brunt of that responsibility, the burden, the fighting, the
bleeding, the dying, is still being incurred by our own forces. We need
to know when that is going to be able to stop. We need to know how that
transition and when that transition is going to occur. We need to put
the Iraqi people and our allies on notice that we are not going to be
there indefinitely and that they need to be willing to step forward to
provide what I think everyone wants, most of the world wants: a stable,
secure, and successful Iraq.
As a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, I have been
increasingly frustrated by our inability, either in the committee,
whether in public or secret briefings, whether as a body or through
other discussions, to get what turns out to be accurate and reliable
information from the civilian command, from the administration.
Yesterday afternoon we had an Armed Services Committee hearing,
a secret hearing, for 3 hours. I received information regarding the
force capabilities of the Iraqi police and military that was at
significant variance from what I was told a week before in Baghdad,
which itself was at considerable variance from what we were told 2
months before, which then was half of the force level we were told
existed a year before that.
What the numbers are, what the training capabilities are--I hesitate
to use this word on the Senate floor, but it applies here--I don't like
being lied to. I am elected to represent the people of Minnesota. I am
elected to look out for their best interests. I met on Sunday with a
few hundred Minnesota family members who were depending upon me to look
out for the interests of their sons and daughters, husbands and wives.
I take that as a life-or-death responsibility, as it is to them and
their loved ones and all the members of the U.S. Armed Forces, putting
their lives on the line every day.
They deserve to know, we deserve to know, the American people deserve
to know from this administration their plan, what is their timetable,
and what kind of progress are we making. We deserve to know the facts.
We deserve to be told facts today that hold up as the truth tomorrow. I
regret to say that is not occurring. It has not occurred, not only in
this instance yesterday but in other significant respects throughout
the last several months.
I appreciate enormously and admire tremendously the leadership of the
Senate Armed Services Committee under its chairman, Senator Warner, and
its ranking member, Senator Levin. Senator Warner has convened any
number of hearings and briefings on the situation in Iraq and other
places around the world, on the prison abuses at Abu Ghraib, on the
armoring and rearmoring of the equipment and personnel for service in
Iraq and Afghanistan.
In the last month, we have found, according to the private
contractors, there was an unused capacity in their production
capabilities of 25 percent for armored Humvees and these rearmoring
kits for those Humvees that are over there in Afghan and Iraq that are
unarmored, a 25-percent unused capacity because of a lack of production
orders from our military, when we were told--and we asked, Republican
and Democratic members of the Armed Services Committee alike,
repeatedly: What do you need? What money, laws, procedures? What do you
need to maximize production and immediate distribution to protect our
men and women serving in Iraq?
We were assured, again and again and again, there was 100-percent
production, that everything was being done, and that they did not need
anything. And then we find out there is significant variance to that,
in fact, in the truth.
Chairman Warner convened several hearings in the last 6 months on the
alleged prison abuses at Abu Ghraib. There were rumors of abuses
occurring elsewhere in Iraq and elsewhere in the world. We were assured
again and again by the administration and the other authorities who
spoke before us that it was limited to those isolated instances in Iraq
and in the Abu Ghraib prison. Now it comes to light, in the last month,
there were documented reports through the chain of command, information
that people who testified before our committee had to be aware of when
they told us in committee hearings information that was at variance
with those reports.
Similarly, the status of the Iraqi security and military forces--
being told by the Secretary of Defense, who I think believed what he
was telling us because that was the information he was given, a year
ago that force level was at 202,000; and then to find out last
September 15, in public remarks he made elsewhere, that number was
about half that level; and then to get published reports that the
actual number is some 78,000; and then to get a report last week that
the number is somewhat above that; and then to get a report yesterday
that the number is some tens of thousands above that. Having that
number not being able to be confirmed by those who are testifying
before us is a great travesty of justice and legality, and their moral,
ethical responsibility to tell us the truth and give us the facts so we
can make those judgments that we are elected and held responsible to
make, along with them, so that hopefully the collective wisdom of all
of us serves the best interests of this country, its foreign policy,
and the lives of its men and women who are serving us overseas, and
who, for every day we keep them over there, are continuing to risk
their lives, and some of them losing their lives or losing limbs,
bodily functions.
This is life and death, and it is time we stop being lied to. I want
this administration, I want the Pentagon command, to tell us the facts,
tell us the truth about the situation in Iraq--what is going right, but
what is going wrong, to tell us the truth and the facts about the
capability of the Iraqi forces to replace ours, to take over
responsibility for the law and order of their own country, to tell us
the truth and the facts about the economic recovery projects, which
ones have started, which ones have not, how much money has been
expended, how much money has been wasted, how much money has been
stolen.
It is shameful this body, which has the history of Harry Truman
setting up a special committee during World War II to investigate the
proper contracting, the proper expenditure of taxpayer dollars for a
defense effort, where again American men and women were relying on that
equipment, relying on getting it right away, and living or dying as a
result--Harry Truman said: I don't care whether they are Democratic
contractors or Republican, let the chips fall where they may and the
truth be known. He went on to become the Vice President and then the
President of the United States because he had that kind of integrity
and that kind of courage.
We ought to see that today on the other side of the aisle, to be
willing to investigate these matters. Whether it is a Republican
administration or a Democratic administration, I don't care; it is an
American administration. Those are American soldiers putting their
lives on the line. We are all responsible, and we can't even get
anybody to look into what is happening or not happening there, and we
can't get anybody to tell us the facts, the truth. It is deplorable. It
is unconscionable. It is un-American. And it is intolerable.
I think this body collectively needs to stand up and demand that we
get the facts and the truth so we can go back home and tell those sons
and daughters and fathers and mothers and husbands and wives what is
happening to their loved ones over in Iraq, and when they are coming
home with the victory they worked for, lived for, bled for, and died
for secured, and how we are going to do that and when.
Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. DeMint). The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
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Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
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