[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 42 (Monday, March 17, 2003)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3799-S3800]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




          ARE WE READY FOR THE CONSEQUENCES OF WAR WITH IRAQ?

  Mr. AKAKA. Mr. President, I rise today to express my deep concerns 
that we are not as prepared as we should be for the consequences of a 
war with Iraq.
  I have complete confidence in the ability of our armed services to 
defeat Iraq. We have a superb military which is, without a doubt, the 
most effective and most professional fighting force ever fielded in the 
history of mankind.
  We can all be proud of our dedicated military men and women. It is 
their dedication and willingness to risk their lives in the service of 
their country that places a special responsibility on our shoulders. 
Our responsibility is to ensure that their service is not expended in 
the vain pursuit of ill-defined objectives and that our national 
security is truly enhanced.
  In my capacity as a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, I 
meet with many of our field commanders. Prior to our debate last 
session on H.J. Res. 114 concerning war with Iraq, I met with one of 
our senior commanders just returned from the war against terrorism. He 
told me ``keep asking the hard questions'' about the consequences of 
committing American troops to a war on Iraq. I have heeded his advice, 
and it is the reason I stand today to discuss the consequences of war 
on Iraq.
  I am concerned that we are not sufficiently prepared either 
materially or psychologically for a protracted occupation of Iraqi 
territory, nor are we sufficiently well prepared domestically for 
possible terrorist attacks on American soil.
  My constituents ask me why the President has chosen to fight Iraq at 
this time or what his objective is in so doing. I do not have a good 
answer for them because the President has yet to provide one.
  Certainly it is true that Saddam Hussein has resisted and ignored 
over the past 12 years United Nations resolutions calling for Iraqi 
disarmament of its weapons of mass destruction. Certainly it is true 
that Saddam Hussein has oppressed the Iraqi people and carried out 
terrible attacks against the Kurds and Shia tribes of Southern Iraq. 
Certainly it is true that Saddam Hussein has paid only grudging 
lipservice to recent efforts by the United Nations Monitoring, 
Verification and Inspection Commission, UNMOVIC, to discover and 
eliminate Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.
  However, none of those issues justifies going to war now if we are 
unprepared for the consequences of war and if we do not have a clear 
exit strategy for getting out of Iraq. It would be far better to take 
the time to ensure that we are prepared for both the consequences at 
home and abroad before sending our superb military into combat in a 
distant land.
  The reasons for war have increased in number and difficulty as we 
build up our forces in the gulf. At first, the President asserted that 
war was to end Saddam Hussein's program for developing weapons of mass 
destruction. More recently, the President has added that our objective 
is to ``help the Iraqi people rebuild their economy, and create the 
institutions of liberty in a unified Iraq at peace with its 
neighbors.'' The President argues for war because he believes that 
``success in Iraq could also begin a new stage for Middle Eastern 
peace, and set in motion progress towards a truly democratic 
Palestinian state.'' Mission creep is already occurring, and the 
mission has not begun.
  In February testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, 
retired General Anthony C. Zinni asked, ``do we want to transform Iraq 
or just transition it out from under the unacceptable regime [. . . 
.]'' and he added, ``defining the problem, however, is only half the 
task. The other half deals with how you solve the problem. I have not 
seen a lot of specifics in this area.''
  The mission of an American occupation to establish a democratic Iraq 
is well-meaning but difficult to implement. Indeed, as I read testimony 
and speeches by administration officials, I am struck by how many new 
objectives are being added to our mission: for example, establish the 
rule of law and an independent judiciary; create a free enterprise 
system; end weapons of mass destruction programs; make an American 
ally; create a bulwark against terrorism; forge a secular and 
democratic state; reform the educational system; and develop a free 
press. These are extremely ambitious programs for a country that has 
little, if any, historical experience and no recent experiences in any 
of these conditions. Perhaps we should be bringing democracy to our 
allies in the region.
  A well-defined objective is crucial for a mission's success. Will the 
objective be a discrete military mission: seek and destroy Iraq's 
weapons of mass destruction, or an open-ended goal to bring democracy 
to a country that has no experience in democracy? The administration 
now indicates that both goals are intertwined: to rid Iraq of its 
weapons of mass destruction we must create a democracy in Iraq. Perhaps 
that is the case. But the opposite is also possible: a democratic Iraq 
responsive to the will of the Iraqi people, continuing to share borders 
with countries traditionally hostile to Iraq--including Iran which we 
have learned this week is well on its way to developing nuclear 
weapons--may feel compelled to restart its weapons of mass destruction 
program out of self-preservation.
  Let us be clear: we can take weapons away from Iraqi leaders but we 
cannot erase the knowledge of how to make those weapons from the minds 
of Iraqi scientists. That capability will always remain. Weapons 
scientists and engineers will not unlearn what they have learned. To 
make another Iraqi WMD program impossible, we need to develop solid 
support for an international regime with enforcement mechanisms to 
prevent the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and the means 
to deploy them.
  Unfortunately, the President's rush to war is undermining the very 
international consensus we need to forge to prevent proliferation.
  International cooperation is essential both in the short term and in 
the long term. In the short term, it is essential for our goal of 
ending the threat from Iraq. A stable international coalition is the 
basis for managing any future crisis. In the long term, it is essential 
to prevent the spread and use of weapons of mass destruction.
  The administration insists that all it needs is a ``coalition of the 
willing'' to go to war. That may be true for war, but will there be a 
coalition to pay the costs of an indefinite occupation of Iraq? Without 
international support, the United States will pay the direct cost for 
our military presence and reconstruction. Our struggling economy will 
also pay an indirect cost adding to our sky-high deficit. Already it 
looks more like a coalition for war of the compensated than a coalition 
of the willing.
  I believe we are not ready for the cost of such an occupation both in 
terms of money and our military.
  When the British conquered Iraq in 1917, the British military 
commander, Lieutenant General Sir Stanley Maude, said ``our armies 
do not come into your cities and lands as conquerors or enemies but as 
liberators.'' When the British departed Baghdad in the 1930s, Sir 
Kinahan Cornwallis observed, ``my own prediction is that they will all 
fly at each other's throats and that there will be a bad slump in the 
administration which will continue until someone strong enough to 
dominate the country emerges, or alternatively, until we have to step 
in and intervene.''

  We should heed history before we attempt to make a future. The danger 
is that the war will end in a few weeks while crisis endures for a long 
time.
  Just recently, the administration announced a $900 million contract 
for postwar Iraqi reconstruction. This is just a small down payment on 
what people in and outside the Government estimate may amount to over 
$100 billion, not including the cost of maintaining a long-term 
American troop presence in Iraq. A military presence will cost 
additional billions and tie down American forces, affecting training, 
rotation cycles, and recruitment of

[[Page S3800]]

our entire military. The cost will be borne largely by the American 
taxpayer unlike the first gulf war which saw Saudi Arabia and Germany 
contribute 44 percent of the operation.
  Some suggest that Iraqi oil exports will pay for the occupation force 
and reconstruction efforts. But a recent study by the Council of 
Foreign Relations warns not to expect such a ``bonanza.'' The Iraqi oil 
industry is estimated to need $5 billion in investment and 3 years just 
to return to pre-1990 production levels, and Iraq is already carrying 
an external debt burden of $300 billion.
  If, as some experts predict, our forces confront ethnic, tribal, and 
religious in-fighting and are besieged by terrorist attacks emboldened 
by pan-Islamic hostility to the American occupation, we may need a much 
larger force than the current 45,000 to 75,000 under review by the 
Pentagon. No doubt, as in the first gulf war, there will be score 
settling among Iraqis with vigilante justice and possibly open warfare. 
Many are predicting that Kurdish refugees expelled in 1968 from their 
homes in Kirkuk will pour back into this center of Iraqi oil wealth, 
bringing with them the possibility of war with Turkey seeking to 
protect Turkmen minority interests.
  The Pentagon is reported to be planning on a 2-year military 
occupation of Iraq under a military governor that may be expanded to 5 
years. Ironically, one of the first things this governor general will 
have to do is to rebuild the Iraqi military with professional training 
and new weapons. Time magazine reports that the Pentagon has ``only a 
rudimentary plan for rehabilitating the bulk of the [Iraqi] Army.'' But 
it is clear that we cannot demobilize over 400,000 Iraqi troops without 
adding to the problems in the civilian sector.
  We are just beginning to plan for all these postwar problems. On 
February 11, 2003, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith 
announced that the President ``has directed his administration to begin 
planning now'' for reconstruction and testified that the administration 
was still ``conceptualizing'' peace. Now is too late for a war that may 
start this month. The Defense Department's Office of Reconstruction was 
opened only on January 20, 2003. Time magazine reported on March 2 that 
``at this late hour, the Administration is not very ready for the 
peace.''
  As Middle East expert Anthony Cordesman warned in testimony before 
the Foreign Relations Committee on February 7, 2003, ``we are rushing 
planning efforts without making adequate efforts to make up for our 
lack of knowledge. As a result, planners both outside and inside the 
U.S. government may end in doing more harm than good. . . .''
  President Bush has stated that ``we will remain in Iraq as long as 
necessary and not a day more.'' I appreciate his candor, but I am 
deeply disturbed by such an open-ended commitment to deploying American 
troops. We may wear out our welcome long before we have accomplished 
the democratic transformation of the Middle East envisioned by the 
President.
  I am also concerned over the lack of preparation at home for the 
possibility of terrorist attacks. Even the President is dissatisfied 
with the counterterrorism budget passed for this fiscal year. I am 
dissatisfied that we have not done more during the past 2 years. As 
chairman of the Governmental Affairs International Security 
Subcommittee, I began holding hearings on our preparedness against 
terrorist attacks in July 2001. I have continued to press for reform of 
our national and local preparedness. I agree with the President that 
the budget for this fiscal year was too small. We have done too little 
to defend ourselves against attack.
  I am disturbed by the letter from FBI Special Agent Colleen Rowley to 
FBI Director Robert Mueller indicating that the FBI would not be able 
to ``stem the flood of terrorism that will likely head our way in the 
wake of an attack on Iraq.'' Last month the FBI issued a warning that 
``lone extremists represent an ongoing terrorist threat in the United 
States.'' Certainly, steps have been taken to improve our law 
enforcement capability, but I believe much more needs to be done before 
we are as prepared as we should be. The President acknowledged as much 
when he announced in his State of the Union Address his intent to 
create by May 1 a new Terrorist Threat Integration Center. This Center 
is at least 3 years away from being fully staffed according to 
administration plans.
  In other areas we are also behind. The Transportation Security 
Administration has just begun to assess the vulnerabilities of American 
airports to terrorist attack, especially from shoulder-launched 
missiles--that task force was set up after the deadly November 28 
attack against an Israeli airline in Kenya. The President's plan to 
immunize 500,000 health care workers against smallpox in 30 days has 
only inoculated 4,200 and is draining money and personnel from other 
programs in State and local public health departments.
  Many State and local law enforcement officials have yet to receive 
federal security clearances so that they can receive information about 
potential terrorist attacks. Our emergency health care system is 
already stressed to the breaking point as hundreds of emergency 
departments have been closed due to budgetary constraints even as the 
number of patient visits has increased. Few of the respirators operated 
by local firefighters and other first responder rescue teams were found 
to be effective against poison gas. Many reservists in our first 
responder units have been called to active military duty, depleting 
critical services at home.
  The list of problems is endless. The ability to solve these problems 
is limited by time and by money. The bottom line is that we have a lot 
to do and a long way to go before we are as ready at home for war as we 
are for waging war far away.
  If war does come, both in Iraq and here at home, we will all support 
our troops and do the best we can to confront the problems here. I 
believe that the security of all Americans would be better served by 
taking the time to be better prepared. Allowing United Nations 
inspectors to do their work in Iraq will deplete the number of weapons 
Saddam Hussein might aim at our troops--already 46 Al Samoud missiles 
have been destroyed--and build international support for resolving the 
Iraq crisis. We will have not only a coalition of the willing but a 
coalition of the strong.
  If we pursue our current path, we will have a war lacking in many 
things essential to achieving complete success. It will be a war 
without broad international support, without sufficient planning for 
postconflict reconstruction and stability, without a definite exit time 
and strategy, and without a firm pricetag. Moreover, it will be a war 
with serious ramifications for our long-term readiness capabilities for 
homeland security and for managing other crises.

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