[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 33 (Monday, March 3, 2003)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2997-S3001]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                                  Iraq

  Mr. President, I rise to talk about some of the events over the 
weekend as it pertains to the looming war in Iraq. I didn't listen to 
all of the talk shows, but if you listen to some of them and then you 
read some of the quotes in the paper by some of the people high up in 
this administration, particularly meaning Under Secretary Paul 
Wolfowitz and also Mr. Pearl, you come away with the feeling and the 
sense that they decided some time ago they were going to go to war 
against Saddam Hussein and Iraq, regardless. There is really nothing 
that could be done that would in any way turn away the full force and 
effect of the U.S. military from a full scale war in Iraq. Because no 
matter what happens, they have a counter, and they keep coming back to 
the fact that it is too little, too late, we can't wait any longer for 
disarmament. But the fact is, over the last 12 years, containment has 
worked. Even though we did not back it with as much force as we 
probably should have at that time and the fact that we did withdraw our 
inspectors in the latter part of the 1990s, when that never should have 
been done, the fact is, during those 12 years, Saddam Hussein never 
marched on another country, never started another war, and even though 
this administration has tried their darnedest, they have never made a 
link between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida.
  Now they are talking about some guy who got injured in Afghanistan 
and he came to Baghdad to get his leg treated because he had his leg 
amputated. He is somewhere around Baghdad, we don't know where. We 
don't even know if he is there. They suspect he is there and that is 
proof that Saddam is working with al-Qaida.
  Perhaps one of the most outlandish statements was a couple weeks ago 
when this purported tape of Osama bin Laden came out. Secretary Powell 
said at that time that--I am paraphrasing--this just goes to show you, 
once again, the link between al-Qaida and Osama bin Laden and Saddam 
Hussein, when in fact on the tape whoever is speaking, whether it was 
Osama bin Laden or not, is basically saying, it is all right to use 
Saddam Hussein to defeat the Americans, but it is not all right to 
support Saddam Hussein because he, too, is an infidel, not a true 
Islamist. Somehow we just ignore that. But there has never been a 
proven link, even though they have tried awfully hard to find one. So--
--

  Mr. HATCH. Will the Senator yield on that point?
  Mr. HARKIN. Sure, I will yield for a question, without losing my 
right to the floor.
  Mr. HATCH. I have been listening to the Senator, and I will rebut his 
earlier remarks later.
  Is the Senator aware of Mr. Zarqawi, who is in Iraq right now, who is 
definitely connected with the al-Qaida people?
  Mr. HARKIN. I ask the Senator, is this the guy who went to get his 
leg amputated?
  Mr. HATCH. He is an operative working within Iraq----
  Mr. HARKIN. He was injured in Afghanistan. I don't remember the name.
  Mr. HATCH. This is the fellow known to be in Iraq right now--or at 
least has been in the last number of months--and who is one of the 
principal operatives for the al-Qaida group, and who has been 
organizing and doing other matters within Iraq itself, and who appears 
to have at least the go-ahead from the Iraqi Government.
  If the Senator is not aware of that, then I understand why he is 
making these comments. But that is only one illustration. Is the 
Senator aware that there may be other illustrations as well?
  Mr. HARKIN. Well, I have read about them and heard about them--that 
there may be some people in and out, or some who may have come in. The 
most I have heard is the one I think the Senator is talking about, but 
I think he came there to get his leg fixed or something. No doubt he 
was well connected with al-Qaida.
  But I say to my friend from Utah, the Government of Iraq said they 
cannot find this guy. Well, our people have said it is ridiculous; of 
course, you can find him. Well, we cannot find Osama bin Laden in 
Afghanistan. We have more spy satellites and listening equipment than 
Iraq ever dreamed of having. I don't know whether this guy is there or 
not. There have been some in and out of Iraq.
  Again, it is very tenuous as to whether or not there are any 
connections. I am sure the Senator from Utah also knows that there has 
been a longstanding feud between Osama bin Laden and his 
fundamentalists and the Iraqi dictator, Saddam Hussein. I say a pox on 
both their houses. But the fact is, in the eyes of Osama bin Laden and 
those fundamentalists, Saddam Hussein is a secular leader, not a true

[[Page S2998]]

Islamist. What they have always wanted was to get rid of Saddam Hussein 
to put in power a religious government in Iraq. So there never has 
been, in all the briefings I have ever had, any love lost between 
Saddam Hussein and the al-Qaida network. They just have different 
ideologies and a different way of approaching how they should govern. 
So, again, they have been trying to make these links between al-Qaida 
and Saddam Hussein, and they have never done it.
  I say to my friend from Utah, there is an interesting piece in the 
Sunday Washington Post. When they caught Khalid Sheik Mohammed, one of 
the most dangerous men in al-Qaida, they captured him in Pakistan. On 
page A-26, there was a picture of all the high-value targets, those who 
have been involved with al-Qaida. No. 1 is Osama bin Laden. And then 
there is Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the one they just caught. Then there is 
Abu Zubaida, still at large. Others have died or have been captured.

  What is interesting about all of this--tier 1, tier 2, tier 3, is 
Osama bin Laden is a Saudi. Zawahiri is Egyptian. Saif Al-Adil is 
Egyptian. Khalid Sheik Mohammed is Pakistani. Then down here is a 
Jordanian, a Palestinian, a Saudi, a Yemeni, an Indonesian, a Kuwaiti, 
and an Egyptian. One thing kind of leaps out at you: Not one of them is 
an Iraqi.
  You would think that if Iraq were so closely tied in with al-Qaida, 
they might have some operatives in there. Not one is Iraqi. So we are 
going to go kill a lot of innocent Iraqis, innocent civilians, women 
and children. Where are the Iraqis in that lineup? You would think, 
with that list, we would go to war against Egypt. Look at all the 
Egyptians--or even the Saudis. Look at all the people who are in tier 
1, tier 2, and tier 3 of the high-value targets, and more than just a 
few are Saudis. Maybe that ought to be the target of our invasion.
  After all, we know it has been the Saudis who, with their deep 
pockets, have been funding the fundamentalists in their efforts in that 
part of the world. It is the Saudis, with their deep pockets, who have 
been buying and paying for Al-Jazeera television with all of the 
inflammatory tirades against the United States and Israel that come 
across that television station. Not Iraq. It wasn't Saddam Hussein 
paying for that. It was the Saudis paying for it.
  So over the weekend we have the capture of Khalid Sheik Mohammed, 
perhaps, as they say, the brains behind al-Qaida, and the brains behind 
September 11--the operations chief and mastermind. That is a great 
capture. I applaud the FBI agents, CIA agents, whoever was involved in 
tracking this guy down and getting him. They did a great job, and I 
hope they get whatever commendations and medals that is appropriate for 
that. But there is someone else that also helped capture Khalid Sheik 
Mohammed, and that is the Government of Pakistan.
  I have taken this floor many times in the past several years to talk 
about our relations with Pakistan and how through the years, clear back 
to the founding of Pakistan as a nation, they have been on our side in 
every war. There isn't one conflict in the world that the U.S. has been 
involved in that the Pakistani Government and troops have not been on 
our side. Even in Haiti we had Pakistani soldiers with us. In Korea. In 
Vietnam. In the gulf war in 1991, Pakistan was there with us. Every 
single time that we have had a capture and a turnover to us of a 
terrorist, it has been Pakistan that has helped us.
  The first bombers at the World Trade Center caught--almost a dozen 
years ago now--were turned over to us by Pakistan. The shooter at the 
CIA in the mid-1990s who killed so many people escaped and went to 
Pakistan. Pakistan caught him and turned him over to us. The bombers of 
the embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were caught by Pakistan and turned 
over to us. And now this is the latest in a long string of terrorists 
who have killed Americans here at home and abroad. Here is the latest. 
Khalid Sheik Mohammed was captured in Pakistan.
  Yes, with the help of our FBI and CIA, and I don't know what other 
intelligence agencies, but it mentions the FBI here, but also with the 
help of the Pakistani Government. It could not have happened unless 
President Musharraf and others came to our aid and assistance to 
capture this guy. Yet how do we treat Pakistani Americans? So many 
Pakistani Americans who are in this country, who have been working, 
many have children who are Americans, have provided health care in our 
country in many cases and in many situations. They are university 
professors, businesses entrepreneurs all over America. Yet we have told 
them they have to march into INS and get fingerprinted and do all this 
within a month. In other words, it is treating Pakistani Americans as 
if they are part of this network of Saudis, Yemenis, Egyptians, 
Jordanians, and everybody else. One might find a Pakistani in there 
someplace, I do not know.

  The Pakistanis have always helped us out, and they are continuing to 
help us out today. We need to help them to combat terrorism in their 
own country.
  After the war in Afghanistan was over, there were over a million 
refugees from Afghanistan and Pakistan. They now think it is probably 
between 1 and 2 million. We provided little--I can almost say no help 
to the Pakistanis to take care of these refugees, to help them get 
resettled, and, as far as I know, we are not doing anything to help 
them now to get back into Afghanistan to resettle. They remain a burden 
on the Pakistani Government.
  It makes one wonder sometimes just what our response is going to be 
if, in fact, we do have a war in Iraq and we have an occupation, when 
we see how we have treated the Pakistanis for all these years.
  There were a couple other interesting events this weekend. The Iraqi 
Government has continued to destroy some of the Al-Samoud missiles. I 
think it is up to 10 now. They said they destroyed six more missiles. 
There is an interesting quote in the paper this morning. It said:

       ``If it turns out at an early stage this month that America 
     is not going to a legal way, then why should we continue?'' 
     Saddam Hussein's scientific adviser, Lt. Gen. Amer al-Saadi, 
     said Sunday.

  In other words, what he is saying is--I read the story--we are 
willing to destroy the missiles, it takes time, but if the United 
States is going to commit war on us anyway, why should we?

       A Senior U.S. official--

  There is always one of those--

     said today the White House remained unimpressed with Iraq's 
     move. ``The standard for cooperation demanded by U.N. 
     Resolution 1441 is full and immediate, not grudging and 
     late,'' the official said. The resolution approved last fall 
     authorized a new round of weapons inspections in Iraq.

  You wonder sometimes what the rush to judgment is. If we can continue 
with more inspectors and Iraq continues to destroy the missiles, and to 
continue the containment policy on Saddam Hussein, isn't that what we 
want?
  There is another unnamed military source that says these missiles 
have questionable accuracy anyway. I am told they went over the line by 
26 miles.
  It was 100 kilometers, and they went over by 26 miles. I had a 
conversation this weekend with someone who said: These missiles could 
be used to hit Israel or hit Europe or maybe even America. That is not 
the case at all. They went 26 miles over the line. Again, it was more 
than what was allowed and they should be destroyed and they are being 
destroyed.
  I guess the point I am making is why are we in such a rush to say 
that is not enough; we are going to go to war anyway? As I said at the 
beginning of my remarks, every time I listen to Mr. Wolfowitz, it seems 
as if this man has made up his mind: We are going to war no matter 
what, unless, as I read between the lines of what he is saying, someone 
assassinates Saddam Hussein and they set up a government and invite us 
in to run operations, then maybe we will not go to war. That seems to 
me about the only scenario that would keep a war from happening, 
according to Mr. Wolfowitz and those around him.
  The other important event that happened this weekend was the vote in 
the Turkish Parliament. The vote was close. We lobbied heavily. We put 
up, I do not know, I am told $15 billion or $26 billion--take your 
pick--to get the Turkish Government to allow us to use their territory 
for our troops, for loading troops, the provisioning of troops, and the 
movement of troops across

[[Page S2999]]

Turkish national territory to Iraq. Even with that, the Parliament 
turned it down. It was a close vote, but they turned it down.
  Then I saw a poll--you can get a lot of information off the Web on 
the weekend when you are working on these issues--there was a poll 
taken in Turkey. I do not know, I have no knowledge of how accurate 
this poll is or who took the poll, but it was a public opinion poll 
that showed that 94 percent of Turkey's citizens were opposed to the 
war in Iraq--94 percent. Even if the poll is off a little bit, one can 
understand why the Turkish Parliament was so reticent even in the face 
of billions of dollars of U.S. money pouring in.
  Someone said on the floor last week, this is not the coalition of the 
willing; it is the coalition of the bought confronting Iraq. If we have 
to go to those measures, $26 billion is what I was told--I stand 
corrected if that is not right. Even if it is $15 billion or someplace 
in between, we are not funding education, we have a problem in 
Medicare, our deficits are going out of sight, but somehow we have $26 
billion to give to Turkey to allow our troops to go across their 
territory. That should raise some real questions as to what is 
happening here.
  Lastly, one has to question what is it we are about underneath it 
all?
  Again, I read from a speech that President Bush gave last week to the 
American Enterprise Institute and some of the comments that were made 
regarding that issue. President Bush said in his speech that we are 
going to have an Iraqi Government that will be representative of the 
people and that we would ensure that happened.
  I went back because I wanted to check to make sure this was official, 
so I looked at the White House document that was sent to us on January 
20, 2003. It is the report from the President required by the Iraqi 
resolution that was passed by Congress last fall.
  Of course, it was supposed to have been in in 60 days. It was just 
another 30 days overdue. I read it over. There is an interesting part 
in the report that President Bush signed and sent to us. I will venture 
to say that not many Senators have read this report. But it is called 
the ``Future of Iraq.'' It is in the report of the President sent to us 
on January 20. I am going to quote from it. It says:

       Should it become necessary for the United States and 
     coalition armed forces to take military action against Iraq, 
     the United States, together with its coalition partners--

  Who are getting fewer and fewer, by the way--

       will play a role in helping to meet the humanitarian, 
     reconstruction, and administrative challenges facing the 
     country in the immediate aftermath of a conflict. . . .We 
     will work to transfer authority as soon as practical to the 
     Iraqis themselves, initially in an advisory role. . . .The 
     U.S. is fully committed to stay as long as necessary to 
     fulfill these responsibilities, but is equally committed to 
     leave as soon as the Iraqi people are in a position to carry 
     out these responsibilities themselves.

  Interesting. ``The U.S. is fully committed''--I do not remember us 
ever having a debate about that commitment, that we are committed to 
stay as long as necessary to fulfill these responsibilities, but are 
equally committed to leave as soon as the Iraqi people are in a 
position to carry out these responsibilities themselves.
  The question is: Who decides that? Who decides when the Iraqi people 
are in a position to carry out these responsibilities themselves?
  There is a quote in the paper from Youssef Ibrahim from the Council 
on Foreign Relations. He said:

       I think Arabs almost without exception would welcome more 
     democracy and more freedom of expression and to be liberated 
     from the police states they all--in one form or another--live 
     under.

  Mr. Ibrahim goes on:

       It does not follow that they would trust America to do this 
     for them. The view over there is totally different from the 
     view expressed here.

  Critics also warn that the Bush administration must overcome a 
credibility gap borne of long memories and unpopular U.S. policies.
  University of Maryland Professor Shibley Telhami warned that an 
invasion of Iraq and subsequent occupation by United States-led forces 
would feed an image of United States imperialism and undermine the very 
goals the administration has set.
  Keep in mind, if we do, in fact, go to war in Iraq and occupy Iraq 
and set up this military type of government for however long we want 
to, it will be the first time ever that the United States has occupied 
an Arab country, the first time ever that we will be seen by the Arabs 
as occupiers, as establishing some kind of colonial power in the Arab 
world. And I think that is going to have severe ramifications.
  Army Chief of staff Shinseki told the Senate Armed Forces Committee 
that several hundred thousand soldiers would be needed to secure 
postwar Iraq. Assistance from friends and allies would be helpful, he 
said.
  Well, I wonder how much help we will get.
  Mr. Wolfowitz is quoted as saying:

       If, when Iraq is liberated, it can come up with a 
     representative government that treats its people decently, 
     I think it can have significant effects throughout the 
     Middle East.

  David Mack, vice president of the Middle East Institute, said they 
make it look like a no-brainer. Put me down as a skeptic. Americans are 
in such a hurry. The people in the region are not. They are worried 
that they are jumping over a precipice.
  By one estimate, 65 million adults in the Middle East cannot read or 
write, 14 million are unemployed, and 10 million school-aged children 
are not enrolled in class.
  When I listen to Mr. Wolfowitz and I read the report from President 
Bush of January 20--I have not seen the movie yet, but I have read the 
book a couple of times, and I looked at it again this weekend, ``The 
Quiet American'' by Graham Greene. You read that and you think about 
how we got into Vietnam--the same kind of thing. We were going to build 
a democracy in Vietnam. We were going to end all this internal fighting 
and take care of the north, and we were going to set up democratic 
forms of government. That was the first, and then there were several 
others that followed. How many thousands of Americans lost their lives 
there? What did it do to our country, for a generation?
  Now one goes to Vietnam and we have diplomatic relations. When we 
look at what is happening in Vietnam, we have to say, what was it all 
about? It was really about the misguided adventurism of, yes, well-
meaning people in this country--I have no doubt that they meant well--
to put a pax Americana, sort of a stamp of America, on a country in 
Southeast Asia, to set up a country that would look like us, mirror us. 
We were going to do it through military force.
  I am sorry, it did not happen then, and it is not going to happen in 
Iraq. It may happen in Iraq at some point. We can encourage that. But 
it is not going to come about through a war that is going to kill 
countless civilians through the establishment of a military occupation 
and through us trying to impose upon the Iraqis our sense of what good 
government is. If only that were true. But history shows it is not.
  We keep hearing from Mr. Wolfowitz and others what a grave threat 
Saddam Hussein is to us. They believe the war in Iraq will be quick, 
maybe 2 or 3 weeks and it will be over with. And that is probably true. 
I have no doubt that could possibly be true. Then one has to ask, if 
that is the case, are they really that big a threat?
  Iraq has no navy. It has no air force to speak of. Its military is 
really in shambles. What kind of a threat are they, especially if we 
can keep inspectors there?
  The other thing I wanted to check on was: Is there a limit on the 
number of inspectors U.N. Resolution 1441 permits? Or any previous 
resolution? Was there any limit by the surrender resolution in 1991 
which first started the inspections? And the answer is no. There is no 
limit on the number of inspectors that the United Nations is allowed to 
have in Iraq. So why have 100? Why do we not have 500? Why do we not 
have 1,000 inspectors, duly trained and qualified, all over that 
country? Saddam Hussein cannot say, no, that is not allowed, because it 
is allowed. I submit, those 1,000 or 500 inspectors fully trained in 
Iraq, even if it takes the next 5 years, is cheaper monetarily than 
what the war is going to cost us, and certainly cheaper in terms of the 
loss of human life, both American lives and innocent lives in Iraq. 
Plus, I believe through that process we will have

[[Page S3000]]

the support and the admiration of other Arab countries.
  A war in Iraq, I believe, will give the backup to the terrorists who 
are out there. I am not so naive to think that there are not terrorists 
even yet in this country, and in other parts of the world, who want to 
do us in. They are there, but it seems like right now they do not have 
a backup. There is not much of a backup. We are tearing up the network 
with the recent capture of Khalid Sheik Mohammed in Pakistan. We are 
destroying this network, and we should keep at it, too. But a war in 
Iraq then will give, I think, people in the Arab world who today are 
not feeling us any ill, will give them the reasons to support 
monetarily, through encouragement, through processors, those terrorists 
who are out there. It is one thing to be a terrorist by yourself 
someplace; it is another thing to be a terrorist backed up, backed up, 
and backed up, like countless other people who are willing to give 
money and support and intelligence to help in your terrorist 
activities. To me, that is what could happen if we go to war in Iraq.

  Lastly, the civilian causalities. I remember the pictures that came 
back from 1991 after the war in Kuwait against the Iraqi Army--tanks, 
trucks, vehicles bombed and burned out, bodies lying all over in the 
desert. That did not provoke any outpouring of ill-will in the Arab 
world. It did not provoke any outpouring of a sentiment that somehow 
all of those people who were killed were somehow innocent. They were 
not. These were soldiers. These were Iraqi troops, used to invade and 
plunder Kuwait.
  It will be different this time. This time it is not just the Iraqi 
Army. It will be innocent men and women in Baghdad who will get killed. 
And those are the pictures that will go around the Arab world. If we 
are just confronting the Iraqi Army, that is one thing. But with all 
the cruise missiles and the bombing and everything else that will go on 
in Baghdad, cruise missiles are very accurate, but sometimes they go 
astray and sometimes people are not where they are supposed to be. 
Sometimes they are in the wrong place at the wrong time. That is what 
will happen, the image of innocent women and children killed by the 
might of the American military in Baghdad.
  That is why the best course of action is to continue the inspections, 
and if we need to, make 500 inspections, make 1,000 inspections. And 
then continue the program: planned destruction of weapons of mass 
destruction and others that Saddam Hussein now possesses in his 
arsenal. It may take more than a week, it may take more than a month, 
it may take 6 months or a year or 2 years or 4 or 5 years.
  The article asked, what is the hurry? If it means less loss of human 
life, and it will certainly cost a lot less, it seems to me that would 
be the wise course of action.
  We have a gang down there at the White House, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard 
Pearle, Negroponte, Elliot Abrams, Poindexter--do these names conjure 
up memories of the past? Sure does. A lot of the misguided adventures 
we got into in the 1980s--in Iran, in Central America, places like 
that--all these names kept popping up at that time because they were 
all involved in the misguided adventures. Now they got the adventure 
that will save us all, it will save America in the future--war in Iraq. 
And occupy Iraq with several hundred thousand troops, stay there as 
long as necessary to set up a government that somehow looks like ours.
  I close my remarks by saying these people ought to go visit Vietnam. 
I have, several years ago, to find out how the people are getting along 
there. They seem to be getting along fine. I still may not approve of 
the kind of government they have. But the people seem to be getting 
along just fine. Saigon is bustling, Hanoi is bustling, the tourist 
industry is going up, manufacturing is going up. Again, it might not be 
the mirror image of our kind of government, but they seem to be doing 
all right.
  So go visit Vietnam, and then go down to this wall down on The Mall 
and remember the misguided adventures of well-meaning politicians of 
the past before we commit our military to a massive invasion of Iraq.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Utah.
  Mr. HATCH. I notice some of my colleagues are here. I ask unanimous 
consent, after my few remarks, Senator Dorgan be permitted to speak for 
up to 25 minutes, and the Senator from South Carolina be permitted to 
speak for up to a half hour, then Senator Sessions for such time as he 
may use.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. HATCH. I will answer some of the questions that have been raised. 
The more I hear from some of my colleagues, I believe they believe the 
Clinton nominees, President Clinton's nominees were mistreated. The 
more I hear them say this, the more I believe, especially after 
listening to the distinguished Senator from Iowa, that what we are 
seeing here on Mr. Estrada, the filibuster is more about pay back than 
about Mr. Estrada.
  Senator Boxer, the distinguished Senator from California, even said 
as much last week when they said, ``What goes around comes around.''
  Let me take a minute or two to set the record straight. I have heard 
my colleague from Iowa say we Republicans are applying a double 
standard because some Clinton nominees, such as Bonnie Campbell, were 
not confirmed. Let me remind my friend that there were more nominees of 
the first President Bush--54--who were not confirmed than there were 
Clinton nominees not confirmed at the end of his administration. Two of 
these nominations were renominated by the current President Bush, John 
Roberts and Terrence Boyle. John Roberts for Circuit Court of Appeals 
for the District of Columbia, and Terrence Boyle for the Fourth Circuit 
Court of Appeals.
  John Roberts was reported out of the committee last week with 
bipartisan support. He has been sitting here for 12 years through three 
nominations by two different Presidents. He is considered one of the 
two greatest appellate lawyers in the country today by members of the 
Supreme Court, as well as others. I look forward to seeing him 
confirmed. It is about time that he was. Terrence Boyle has been 
sitting there for 12 years, nominated three times, by two separate 
Presidents.
  President Bush has nominated not only Miguel Estrada for the Federal 
appellate bench, but these other two qualified nominees who have been 
sitting there for 12 years. He also nominated, contrary to what the 
distinguished Senator from Iowa said, two other Hispanic nominees for 
circuit courts of appeals, one for the Fifth Circuit and one for the 
Ninth Circuit, as well as Miguel Estrada.
  The distinguished Senator from Iowa is trying to make a comparison 
between Bonnie Campbell and Miguel Estrada. Let me first say, I like 
Bonnie Campbell. I feel badly she did not make it to the floor. She was 
not on the floor. There was no filibuster. Her experience was nowhere 
near that of Miguel Estrada. In fact, to my knowledge, she never tried 
a case either before a trial court or on appeal. She never argued an 
appellate case. She never appeared before the U.S. Supreme Court. As a 
matter of fact, you could go into more and more. But compare her ABA 
rating with Miguel Estrada's. Her ABA rating was a ``majority 
qualified,'' which is a step below Mr. Estrada's rating of 
``unanimously well qualified,'' the highest rating the American Bar 
Association gives. Hers was ``qualified'' by a majority of the standing 
committee and ``not qualified'' by a minority of the standing 
committee. There is quite a bit of difference between the two nominees, 
plus the fact that Miguel Estrada is on the floor and there is a 
filibuster, a totally partisan filibuster being conducted against him.

  I hope my colleagues are not going to continue that filibuster, but I 
understand that is what they intend to do. I hope some of my colleagues 
on the other side who are thinking more clearly will admit this is a 
dangerous thing to do. It is a wrong thing to do. I think it is an 
unconstitutional thing to do. I think it diminishes both the executive 
and the judicial branches of Government while increasing the power of 
the Senate, the congressional branch, or legislative branch.
  Since the topic has been raised of the committee's confirmation 
record during the Clinton administration, I want to take a moment to 
set the record straight. During President Clinton's 8

[[Page S3001]]

years in office, he had 377 Federal judges confirmed, just 5 less than 
President Reagan, who was the all-time champion. But President Reagan 
had 6 years of a Republican Senate to help him--of his own party. 
President Clinton only had 2 years of his own party, the Democrats, to 
help him. There were 6 years where I was chairman, and we still put his 
judges through as much as we could. If you compare the number confirmed 
to the number nominated, President Clinton enjoyed an 85-percent 
confirmation rate on individuals he nominated. That is one of the 
highest ratings. What is more, President Reagan, like I say, had 6 
years of a Senate controlled by his own party, while President Clinton 
had only 2.
  Here is what happened to the 56 Clinton nominees who did not get 
confirmed during those 8 years. Some of them were multiple nominees. 
Three were left at the end of the 103rd Congress when the Democrats 
were in control, so those three cannot count against the Republicans. 
That leaves 53. Nine were nominated too late in the Congress for the 
committee to feasibly act on them or they were lacking the appropriate 
paperwork. That leaves 44. Seventeen of those lacked home State 
support, which often resulted from the White House's failure to consult 
with home State Senators. There was no way to confirm those nominations 
without completely ignoring the senatorial courtesy that we afford to 
home State Senators in the nominations process. That leaves only 27. 
One nominee was defeated on the Senate floor, which leaves only 26 
remaining Clinton nominees. Of those, some had reasons for not 
moving that I simply cannot comment on. So in all 6 years that I 
chaired the committee while President Clinton was in office, there were 
fewer than 26 nominations left in committee.

  Let's compare this record to the first Bush administration when the 
Democrats controlled the committee. The Democrats failed to confirm 58 
Bush 1 nominees over the course of only 4 years. Let's look at the 
number of nominees pending at the end of the Clinton and Bush 1 
administrations. While there were 41 Clinton nominees left in the 
committee at the end of the 106th Congress when Clinton left office, 
the Democrats left 13 more, a total of 54 nominees hanging at the end 
of the first Bush administration. Moreover, of the 41 Clinton nominees 
left at the end of the 106th Congress, one was renominated and 
confirmed in the 107th Congress, 12 lacked home State support, and 9 
were nominated too late for the committee to act or had incomplete 
paperwork. That really leaves only 20 nominees who did not go forward 
during the last year of the Clinton administration.
  All this goes to show that any allegation that this committee was 
somehow unfair to President Clinton's nominees is simply untrue, and 
payback is not the right thing to do. In fact, I treated the Clinton 
nominees better than the Democrats treated the Bush 1 nominees and I 
think better than the current Senate leadership is treating the current 
President Bush's nominees. I just wanted to set that record straight. 
You cannot compare the Bonnie Campbell matter with the Miguel Estrada 
matter. They are completely distinguishable. And with regard to 
ability, there is no comparison.
  Miguel Estrada not only has graduated at the top of his respective 
college and law school classes, at Colombia and Harvard, but he also 
was an editor of the Law Review; worked as a clerk for Amalya Kearse, a 
Carter appointee in the Second Circuit Court of Appeals; worked as a 
clerk to Anthony Kennedy, currently a Justice in the U.S. Supreme 
Court; worked in the Solicitor General's Office; was highly respected; 
has four of the--worked for three, if not four, of the Clinton 
Solicitors General; worked 4 years for Clinton; 1 year for Bush; argued 
15 cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, winning 10 of them even though 
he has a speech impediment, a disability. It is amazing what this man 
has been able to do, and it is amazing to me that he has gone through 
this. I do not see one justifiable reason in the world for this.
  On the other hand, I don't understand, sometimes, my colleagues on 
the other side. I know they do not all agree. We have a total of 55 
votes we know will vote for Miguel Estrada. It seems to me that is what 
we ought to be doing is voting up or down. We should not be setting 
this awful precedent of a filibuster against any judicial nominee or, 
for that matter, any person on the Executive Calendar because I believe 
it does fly in the face of the separation of powers doctrine, to 
require, from here on in, if this precedent is set, 60 votes to confirm 
any ``controversial'' nominee. If that happens, then the Presidency 
will have been diminished, the judiciary will have been diminished, and 
we will not be able to get the top people in the country to even take 
these seats.
  Keep in mind, we pay the Chief Justice of the United States Supreme 
Court $192,000 a year. Any one of these top nominees makes four or five 
times that or more. So these jobs are not plums as far as their salary. 
These jobs are taken because people want to give service to the Federal 
Government. They want to serve the public and they are willing to 
sacrifice the monetary remuneration they are making as attorneys in 
order to serve. We ought to keep that in mind.

  I would hate to see the day we only get the lesser of the less to be 
nominated because nobody else of any qualifications would want to go 
through this type of an awful procedure. I don't want to see the day 
when the only ones who can make it are those who do not have any 
records, have written nothing, have never said anything, whom you don't 
know anything about, and who may be good judges but may very well not 
be. It is going to be tough even for the American Bar Association to 
make their evaluations because they won't have anything to make them 
on, other than the local attorneys who may be practicing law in the 
same area.
  I have said enough. I just wanted to set the record straight.
  Also, I totally disagree with the distinguished Senator from Iowa in 
his comments about the Iraq situation. We do have evidence of al-Qaida 
people being in Iraq. We do have evidence of organization within Iraq. 
We do have evidence that I think would rebut almost everything the 
distinguished Senator from Iowa said. But since my colleagues are on 
the floor and desire to speak, I do not want to take their time. So I 
yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Roberts). Under the previous agreement, 
the Senator from North Dakota, Senator Dorgan, is recognized for 25 
minutes, to be followed by Senator Hollings of South Carolina for 30 
minutes, to be followed by Senator Sessions.
  The distinguished Senator from North Dakota is recognized.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I have voted for over 100 judges nominated 
by President Bush. In North Dakota, we have had vacancies in both the 
west and east district judgeships. President Bush nominated two 
Republicans for those judgeships. I was happy to support them, and to 
work with President Bush to make sure that their confirmation went 
smoothly. One has been confirmed, the other I am convinced will be 
confirmed, and both will make us proud as Federal judges.
  I make that point only to say that I expect to be supportive of most, 
if not all, of the President's nominees. And I wish that we could have 
a vote on Mr. Estrada.
  Mr. Estrada's nomination is problematic, however, in that he has 
refused to answer some basic questions. My colleagues, the ranking 
member of the Judiciary Committee and the minority leader, have 
indicated by letter that Mr. Estrada needs to be forthcoming, and 
answer provide some basic information about his judicial philosophy and 
temperament. Considering that Mr. Estrada is seeking a lifetime 
appointment to the bench, one would expect that he would be eager to 
provide that information.
  Judge Hovland, whom the President nominated to the Western District 
of North Dakota, answered the very questions that Mr. Estrada would 
not. I was happy to support Judge Hovland. I wish Mr. Estrada would be 
forthcoming.
  When and if he does that, I hope we proceed to vote. And then we can 
move on to any number of pressing matters.