Congressional Record, Volume 149 Issue 83 (Monday, June 9, 2003)

[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 83 (Monday, June 9, 2003)]
[House]
[Pages H5081-H5086]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

[Congressional Record: June 9, 2003 (House)]
[Page H5081-H5086]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]
[DOCID:cr09jn03-84]

POSTWAR IRAQ: WINNING THE PEACE AND FINDING WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION

The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Feeney). Under the Speaker's announced
policy of January 7, 2003, the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr.
Hoeffel) is recognized for 60 minutes.
Mr. HOEFFEL. Mr. Speaker, I will be joined by several colleagues this
evening in a discussion about Iraq, with two fundamental questions to
be addressed: First, are we winning the peace in Iraq after our
impressive and important military victory, are we winning the peace in
Iraq? And secondly, where in the world are the weapons of mass
destruction?
I will be joined shortly by the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr.
Menendez), the minority caucus chair and a senior member of the
Committee on International Relations, and by the gentleman from
Massachusetts (Mr. Delahunt), a senior member of the House Committee on
International Relations, and several others. We would like to have a
colloquy this evening amongst ourselves to discuss this issue, to raise
these issues for the American people.
Let me make a few points to get us started. We all agree that our
Armed Forces performed brilliantly in Iraq. We are very proud of our
young men and young women in uniform, and the military victory we won
was important in that it removed the threat posed to regional and even
world peace by the murderous regime of Saddam Hussein. But while the
military victory is ours, the military mission is not yet accomplished,
because we have not found and disarmed and dismantled the weapons of
mass destruction.
There must be an accounting to Congress, to the American people, and
to our allies regarding the weapons of mass destruction. They are
certainly, in the hands of a terrorist, the greatest security challenge
we face, and yet we do not know where the weapons of mass destruction
are today. We need to determine what we must do to disarm and dismantle
them. We must determine who has the custody of those weapons and what
steps we must require of any new custodian to render those weapons
harmless. If the weapons have been destroyed, then how did that happen,
and how is it possible that our security agencies would not have known?
And, fundamentally, did the Bush administration overstate its case for
war against Iraq, based upon weapons of mass destruction? Did the
administration mislead the Congress and the American people
intentionally, or not, about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction
program? Did the Bush administration misuse the intelligence gathered
by our national security agencies? Did they hear only what they wanted
to hear? Did they believe only what they wanted to believe? Or did they
tell us only what they wanted us to hear about the weapons of mass
destruction?
The Bush administration has a growing credibility gap, Mr. Speaker,
regarding the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and we must have a
full accounting.
Let me quickly touch on the second topic before turning to my
colleagues, and that would be whether we are winning the peace in Iraq.
We are faced with enormous challenges: peacekeeping, humanitarian aid,
reconstruction, and building a new government. And the truth is that
events in post-conflict Iraq are not going as well as they should.
Security is a huge problem. Rampant lawlessness is blocking the
economic recovery and the establishment of a civil society that we all
want to achieve. Humanitarian aid is lacking. Reconstruction has not
even started. And the establishment of a pluralistic and representative
government seems a very long way off as the demands of religious and
ethnic groups are loud and unresolved.
What are we doing in Iraq to deal with this? We have replaced all of
the senior administrators that we first sent under Jay Garner and have
replaced them with a new crew under Paul Bremmer. We have won the
United Nations' approval by the Security Council of U.N. Resolution
1483 which names the U.S. and Great Britain as occupying powers,
occupying powers under international law in Iraq. So we are responsible
for the recovery, the reconstruction, the administration, and the
establishment of a new government in Iraq as the occupying power.
Well, what have we done to get the ball rolling here? First came the
Chalabi plan, Ahmed Chalabi, a 30- or 35-year exile from Iraq, head of
the Iraqi National Congress. He visited my office on October 3, 2002. I
believe he was making the rounds of members of the Committee on
International Relations. To tell my colleagues the truth, I found Mr.
Chalabi to be a blowhard, to be a blusterer, full of spin, the kind of
man my grandfather would have called a four-flusher.

[[Page H5082]]

{time} 2310

I am not quite sure what that means, but I think Achmed Chalaby meets
the definition.
The Pentagon civilian leadership believed Achmed Chalaby, believed
him when he said that Saddam Hussein had vast stores of weapons of mass
destruction. Those weapons have not been found. They believed Chalaby
when he said there was a close connection between al Qaeda and Hussein.
That connection has not been established.
The Pentagon civilian leadership believed Chalaby when he said the
Shiite Muslims in the south of Iraq would greet American military
forces as liberators, greet them with open arms. Instead, they are
treating us as occupiers and colonizers.
We flew Mr. Chalaby in with 700 followers. We armed him. We gave him
arms, Mr. Speaker. We have now had to take those arms away because he
does not have credibility.
The second plan was the Group of Seven plan to take seven so-called
leaders, mostly exiles like Chalaby, and put them in as an interim
authority to run Iraq. We have had to give up on that. Jay Garner could
not get that to happen.
The third plan now is the Bremer plan. Under the Bremer plan, Paul
Bremer, the new viceroy, American Viceroy in Iraq, will appoint a 25-
to 30-person advisory council to give us advice on how to rule Iraq. We
are not forming an interim authority or government, as we spoke of
before. We hope to establish by fiat what really should come from
within, from the people of Iraq.
So we have some very real challenges. I have more comments to make,
but I have colleagues here who are anxious to join this debate and
engage in a colloquy.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr.
Delahunt).
Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me.
I want to congratulate him on conducting this particular Special Order
because I think it is very important.
Clearly, newspaper reports, interviews over the course of the past
several days, have raised these issues, really, to a level that I know
our respective offices are receiving numerous telephone calls by
constituents that are expressing profound concern.
Earlier this evening, a Republican colleague of ours talked about
these issues. I think he was suggesting that they were emanating from a
crowd that he called Blame America First. I respectfully have to
disagree with him. I think these are questions that have to be asked. I
think it is our responsibility to ask them on behalf of the American
people.
We are not the only ones that are asking these questions. If there is
a Blame America crowd, there are many people in that crowd who are not
only highly regarded and highly respected but are Members of both
parties.
I think it is important to note that the top Marine officer in Iraq,
Lieutenant General Jim Conway, and again, this is from a report in The
Washington Post, when no such weapons had been found and the move was
announced just hours ago, and we are talking about a reorganization of
the group that is missioned or tasked to look for these weapons of mass
destruction, he said in a press conference that U.S. intelligence was
simply wrong in leading the military to believe that the invading
troops were likely to be attacked with chemical weapons.
This is a statement by Lieutenant General James Conway. I doubt that
he is part of any group that would blame America, but he is making a
statement that deserves an answer.
The Republican Chair of the Permanent Select Committee on
Intelligence of this House, highly regarded, well respected on both
sides of the aisle, in a letter dated May 22, 2003, and I am referring
to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Goss), he co-signed a letter to the
director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Let me just simply quote
several sentences:
``The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence believes that
it is now time to reevaluate U.S. intelligence regarding the amount or
existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and that country's
linkages to terrorist groups such as al Qaeda.
``The committee wants to ensure that the intelligence analysis
relayed to our policymakers from the intelligence community was,'' and
I am quoting the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Goss), ``accurate,
unbiased, and timely in light of new information resulting from recent
events in Iraq.'' He goes on: ``The committee is also interested in
understanding how the CIA's analysis of Iraq's linkages to terrorist
groups such as al Qaeda was derived.''
No one in this body would ever describe the gentleman from Florida
(Mr. Goss) as a member of the Blame America Crowd.
When we raise questions about the planning and the efforts of
reconstructing Iraq after that war, I am confident that no one would
ever accuse the Republican chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee, Richard Lugar, as part of the Blame America Crowd. Let me
read, Mr. Speaker, to my colleagues and to the American people what
Senator Lugar, a Republican from the State of Indiana, chairman of the
foreign relations committee, had to say in an opinion piece that he
wrote on May 22 of this year:
``But transforming Iraq will not be easy, quick, or cheap.'' These
are his words: ``Clearly, the administration's planning for the post-
conflict phase in Iraq was inadequate. I am concerned that the Bush
administration and Congress has not yet faced up to the true size of
the task that lies ahead or prepared the American people for it. The
administration should state clearly that we are engaged in nation-
building.'' That is Senator Lugar's phrase. ``We are constructing the
future in Iraq. It is a complicated and uncertain business, and it is
not made any easier when some in the Pentagon talk about quick exit
strategies or saying dismissively that they don't do nation-building.
The days when America could win battles and then come home quickly for
a parade are over.''
Mr. HOEFFEL. Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the gentleman if he is
aware of some of the comments made by the administration last fall in
the lead-up to the votes, the very important votes taken in Congress
and in the United Nations regarding the war on Iraq. Statements of
certainty from the President and other high administration officials
have not been supported by recent disclosures from the intelligence
agencies, the kinds of problems that I believe are leading to the
credibility gap that I see growing here.
Let me give the gentleman a couple of examples, and I would be
interested in his comment.
President Bush said in the Rose Garden on September 26, 2002, that
the Iraqi regime possesses biological and chemical weapons. The Iraqi
regime is building the facilities necessary to make more biological and
chemical weapons.''
However, at the very time, the Defense Intelligence Agency was
circulating a report in September of 2002 which said there was ``no
reliable information on whether Iraq is producing or stockpiling
chemical weapons, or whether Iraq has or will establish its chemical
agent production facilities.''

{time} 2320

This and other information led Greg Thielmann, who retired from the
State Department in September 2002 as director of the Strategic
Proliferation and Military Issues Office in the State Department's
Bureau of Intelligence and Research, who reviewed this classified
intelligence gathered by the CIA and other agencies in the run-up to
the debate in the Congress and the U.N., to accuse the administration
of distorting intelligence and presenting conjecture as fact. And he
was quoted this week by the Associated Press as saying, ``What disturbs
me deeply is what I think are the disingenuous statements made from the
very top about what the intelligence did say.''
Is the gentleman aware of these statements and inconsistencies, and
would he care to comment on them?
Mr. DELAHUNT. Yes, I am clearly aware of them and it even goes beyond
to simply Mr. Thielmann. In fact, there is such outrage among
intelligence professionals, people that have committed their lives to
this work who I am sure are devoted to their country and are clearly
not part of the Blame America Crowd; but they have come together and
formed a group, Veterans Intelligence Professionals for Sanity.
They wrote recently to President Bush to protest what they call a
policy, and, again, I am quoting here, ``a

[[Page H5083]]

policy in intelligence fiasco of monumental proportions. While there
have been occasions in the past when intelligence has been deliberately
warped for political purposes,'' this is their letter, ``never before
has such warping been used in a systematic way to mislead our elected
representatives in voting to authorize war.''
That is a very serious accusation; and the American people deserve to
have these individuals, other individuals come before in public
session, the appropriate committees in Congress, and listen to what
they have to say and provide us with an opportunity to inquire to them,
let us lift the veil of secrecy. This is a democracy.
When we talk about American values, we talk about transparency and
accountability; and I am profoundly concerned as to what I am
witnessing over the course of the past 2 or 3 weeks, specifically as it
relates to the issues of weapons of mass destruction and the issue of
links with al Qaeda and the Saddam Hussein regime.
Mr. MENENDEZ. On the gentleman's very point, I want to thank our
colleague for convening this opportunity to talk about a very important
issue. I would like to ask both of the gentlemen, you sat, as I did
here, during the State of the Union speech. You heard the President, as
I did, say that one of the concerns is that Iraq sought to buy uranium
in Africa. And that was included in the President's State of the Union
speech, one of many compelling reasons why supposedly we had to be
alarmed about Iraq and Saddam Hussein. And yet we read in today's
Washington Post that the National Security Advisor, Condoleezza Rice
conceded that that was an inaccurate claim. And yet here before the
entire body of Congress and the American people, we were told that one
of the compelling reasons, why do you buy uranium? You buy uranium for
nuclear devices. Iraq is something that we need to be concerned about.
And my question to both of my colleagues is, does this not go to the
fundamental issue that if the President's preemption doctrine, not that
many of us agree with that as a doctrine that should be followed by the
United States, but this doctrine of preemption which basically says we
cannot wait for the risk to rise to a level that is a threat to the
national security of the United States, we have to go in there in any
country and preempt that threat, that even if one is to ascribe
themselves to that view, that it is based upon the ability of the
United States too gather accurate intelligence and make honest
assessments? Does that not go to that very purpose of that doctrine?
When we see the revelations that seem to be coming forth like
Condoleezza Rice saying, yes, that statement that the President made
before Congress and the whole Nation about uranium purchases in Africa
being false, that those begin to raise concerns. How do we begin to
have any credibility in any such preemption doctrine when the
fundamental underpinnings seem to be at question, which is what I think
the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Delahunt) is saying.
Mr. DELAHUNT. Exactly. I think the point is, how in the future, if we
face a genuine threat to our liberty, to our democracy, do we turn to
our allies and the rest of the world and say this is a moment when the
United States must take action, given what appears to be, what appears
to be issues surrounding the quality of our intelligence.
Let me just go a bit further with the example that you alluded to. It
was so shoddy, the intelligence work, that a local police department,
let alone our intelligence agencies, would have, I hope, discovered
that this information was false. It was based on forged documents. It
was one of the documents being signed by the foreign minister of this
particular nation which happens to be Niger, not Nigeria, but Niger on
the continent of Africa, signed by the foreign minister. And simply
taking the name of the foreign minister and doing an Internet search
would have revealed that the foreign minister whose signature appeared,
in fact, had left that particular role, had resigned from government
for 10 years, 10 years.

What does that say about the quality of the intelligence that was
relied on by the President and by those who supported the military
intervention in Iraq?
And yet some would suggest that to even pose these questions or raise
these concerns is Blame America First? I respond by saying it is
defending America, defending our democracy, defending our credibility,
defending our claim to moral authority among the family of nations. Not
to do so would be unpatriotic.
Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. Speaker, I think the gentleman's point is well
taken. As a matter of fact, one of the things that I was additionally
concerned about, and the gentleman did mention the Internet and how
anybody who just did a casual search would see that this foreign
minister had not been in office in a decade, and yet we rely upon it as
fact by which we act and we do not even do a rudimentary study to find
out whether that document had legitimacy.
It is interesting to note that one of our allies in this regard seems
to have the same problem in this regard. There is an article that
appeared in The New York Times that talks about how the top aide to
Prime Minister Blair wrote to the head of Britain's Intelligence
Service earlier this spring conceding that the government's
presentation of a report on Iraqi arms was mishandled. And the report
which is entitled, ``Iraq, Its Infrastructure of Concealment, Deception
and Intimidation,'' was used as part of the reason to pursue an
invasion of Iraq and Saddam Hussein. And it is now referred to in the
British news media as the dodgy dossier because of evidence that part
of it was down loaded from the Internet, completed with typographical
errors from an American student's thesis that relied on 12-year-old
public information. And it is now being reviewed by two parliamentary
committees in Great Britain because it raises doubts about its central
claim that Iraq's chemical and biological weapons were in such a state
of readiness that they could be launched within 45 minutes, within 45
minutes.

{time} 2330

That type of information is incredibly frightening when that is the
basis under which we would deploy American troops, put at harm American
soldiers.
There is no question, I think we would all agree, that Saddam Hussein
was a dictator, was a bad actor, happy to see him leave from the world
stage; but the question is, what invokes the policy of preemption, the
use of U.S. forces and power abroad, under what basis? That is why so
many of us who asked questions at the time and say, well, what is the
foundation, what is the clear and present danger to the U.S., what is
the imminent threat, have real concerns now as I think we see this
intelligence information suggesting that there was not necessarily a
clear and present danger, any imminent threat to the United States.
I think it puts us in a serious doubt with the international
community when the next situation arises. I do not know what my
colleague thinks about it.
Mr. HOEFFEL. The certainty that was used by the Bush administration
to present this information in the fall of 2002 I think is a critical
issue here. It is not completely clear at this point what all of the
intelligence agencies were saying. Their information is becoming
declassified and is beginning to be made public, but it is very clear
what administration leaders were saying. In addition to the President,
whom I already quoted also on September 26, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld
told reporters, ``Iraq has active development programs. Iraq has
weaponized chemical and biological weapons.'' Yet a national
intelligence estimate of October 2002, which was reputed to have said
that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, when we look at the backup
material that is just being declassified, it is much more equivocal.
The question is was the intelligence wrong or were the political
leaders who were getting that intelligence misusing it? Were they
hearing what they wanted to hear? Were they telling us what they
thought we ought to hear? Were these innocent mistakes? Were they
unintentionally mishandling the information, or was it more sinister?
I think these are fundamental questions that need to be asked if the
gentleman is right; that if we are going to evaluate this new doctrine
of preemption, a fundamental part of that has to be faith and
credibility that our fear of

[[Page H5084]]

imminent attack from another nation is an accurate fear, and if it is
not an accurate fear, then the whole notion of preemption cannot
possibly work.
I know my colleagues are anxious to respond, but we have been joined
by a senior member of the House, the gentleman from Washington (Mr.
McDermott) who is sitting patiently and I think has quite a bit he
would like to add to the discussion. So I would be happy to yield to
the gentleman from Washington (Mr. McDermott).
Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for coming out here
at 11:30 at night to discuss this. The tragedy and really travesty of
this whole thing of us being out here at this hour of the night, we
have no mechanism to which we can get at the truth. They will never
have an investigation in this House that ought to be done on what the
President has said, what he has led to believe.
In Great Britain, they are calling for an independent judge to look
at the whole question. What do we do in this House? Our distinguished
colleague, who was mentioned before, from Florida was, Let's have the
intelligence community look at their reports and see if they can
evaluate how they did. That is about like asking the fox to go down to
the hen house and check the lock, see if the key works. I mean, that
makes no sense at all in my view.
It is clear we have two choices. We either have the choice that the
President and those people who presented the evidence, or whoever
presented him bad information, which implies stupidity, or we have a
situation where they manipulated us. I voted against it because it was
clear to me from September that they were so eager to go to war that
they were going to say whatever they had to, and they shifted from al
Qaeda to weapons of mass destruction to aluminum tubes to cake from
Niger. Anything they could grab they threw up here and said this is the
reason we have to go to war.
The other day Wolfowitz said the reason we had to go to war was
because we did not have any other way to get at him. They were sitting
on a lake of oil so we could not manipulate him financially anymore so
we had to attack. North Korea, we can manipulate them financially
because they are broke. We can squeeze them, but there was no way to
squeeze the Iraqis.
In my view, we were going to go to war from about the first of
September on. They had made the decision, and they came out here and
repeatedly presented information.
In one of the training sessions before they went to the United
Nations, they were rehearsing with Mr. Powell, and he finally got so
frustrated looking at this stuff he threw pages up in the air and said
bull-, and he used the word from the barnyard. He said this is
nonsense. But yet the next day he got up and presented it to the whole
world as this was the truth. And here we are, 80 days after they say
the war is over. I mean, the President stages this photo op out there
and lands and says, well, we have conquered it. You know why he does
not say the war is over? Because if he did, he would have to face the
reality or the real travesty of this thing is that they never planned
for after the war.
The mess they have got over there right now is incredible, and I mean
all we have to do is read the BBC. The BBC says that the incidence of
diseases such as cholera, dysentery, and typhoid are 2\1/2\ times
greater in the month of May 2003 than they were in the month of May
2002. That is what democracy brought the children of Iraq. That is what
our President says he was going to bring. We are going to bring
democracy, we are going to bring you cholera, we are going to kill kids
on the basis of diarrhea.
The electric lights are not on. Why? Because they are having a big
squabble with Bechtel about whether they ought to privatize the
electric industry. The water is not clean because they are having a
squabble with Bechtel about privatizing utilities.
And the worst thing was in today's newspaper. In today's newspaper,
the New York Times on page 15, here we have a colonel that is
responsible for 500,000 people in southern Baghdad. He has got 700
paratroopers and he is supposed to run a city of half a million people.
He says, ``I was in Haiti but I arrived here with zero experience
running a city. We all wonder if we can go back and apply for an
honorary degree in public communication. A lot of this stuff we are
just completely feeling our way in the dark.'' This is a colonel in the
United States military talking.
Mr. HOEFFEL. Mr. Speaker, if I can ask the gentleman a question, I am
glad he moved us on to the questions of reconstruction and new
governance in Iraq. It seems to me the biggest problem facing America
in post-conflict Iraq is the perception, if not the reality, that we
are an occupying colonial power as opposed to a liberating power,
anxious to work internationally with existing organizations to develop
a representative government.
Mr. McDERMOTT. My colleague is absolutely correct. The Arab world has
had this before. They saw the West come in into Palestine, into
Algeria, into Egypt. They were going to be there just a couple of years
to get things stabilized after the Ottoman Empire was over and the
First World War was done, and they stayed for 25 years. These people
see us, they have got a memory, and they are just saying, hey, get out
of here, let us run it; you said we were going to be able to elect our
own people. My colleague from Pennsylvania has already pointed out that
we have already said we cannot have an election until you learn to pick
the right people. So we are going to give you a group of 10 that we
will select, and that way we will put an Iraqi face on the government.
Now, if you cannot ask where is our democracy, I do not know. They
certainly have a right to choose their own government. It should not be
decided by our government who is going to run that country.
Mr. HOEFFEL. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Massachusetts I think
has a comment.

{time} 2340

Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, let me pick up on the issue that the
gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Hoeffel) raises and the gentleman from
Washington (Mr. McDermott).
Our troops made us proud. We all support them. Every American
supports them. Now they are being asked to do something, as the
gentleman indicates, that they have not been trained for. There they
are on the ground in a situation that at best is unstable. I do not
even want to calculate the number of dead American soldiers on a weekly
basis that have occurred as a result of guerrilla-type attacks,
ambushes. It is simply not fair.
And the irony of this is that the Army Chief of Staff, General
Shinseki, indicated before the war that it was his judgment, his
estimate that we would need several hundred thousand troops in Iraq for
an extended period of time. He was dismissed by the Secretary of
Defense. I think maybe it was the Under Secretary of Defense, Mr.
Wolfowitz, maybe Mr. Rumsfeld.
Mr. McDERMOTT. It was Mr. Rumsfeld.
Mr. DELAHUNT. But that was grossly exaggerated. Now we discover that
General Shinseki is absolutely correct. When I asked during the course
of a House Committee on International Relations hearing to the Under
Secretary of Defense, Mr. Dan Fife, simple questions, I think his
responses are informative; and if I could indulge, I asked Secretary
Fife, ``We read different estimates of the cost of reconstruction to
the American taxpayers. What is the current estimate of the
administration in terms of the cost to the American taxpayers for the
reconstruction of Iraq?
``Mr. Fife: There is no total estimate for the whole government for
the whole range of things.
``Mr. Delahunt: There is no estimate. Is there a range?
``Mr. Fife: I am not aware that anybody has pulled together all of
the threads.''
So then I said, ``Well, I would hope that they would pull the threads
together, and if you can get that information to me in writing, I would
appreciate that.''
This is maybe several weeks ago rather than at the end of the combat,
the hostilities announced by the President. I would hope, in fact, that
these estimates would have occurred months before the military
intervention was launched. Then I go on, ``You have answered my
question, but I would like to receive something in writing, Mr.
Secretary, and I would like to share it

[[Page H5085]]

with my colleagues. I think it was General Shinseki that estimated some
200,000 troops would be necessary to secure stability in Iraq. What is
the current estimate from the Department of Defense and for how long
would they be required?''
The Under Secretary's response: ``These kinds of questions have been
an issue for some weeks, and we are continually being asked. And we
are, obviously, not getting through on a key point which is there are
so many things, so many different aspects of reconstruction and
security, and each aspect depends on events and it depends on things we
do not know about and we cannot know about. For example, how smoothly
is the transition to an Iraq interim authority going to take place, and
how quickly are the Iraqis going to be organizing?''
I responded, ``I respect that, Mr. Secretary, but at the same time I
would hope that the department would have been prepared to provide a
range in terms of worst- and best-case scenarios. I think we have a
right to that information. Let me ask you another question: Do you have
an estimate in terms of when an election in Iraq may occur?''
The Under Secretary responded, ``No, we do not.''
``I appreciate your answers. You indicated there appears to be a
narrow popular support for a theocracy similar to the one in Iran. Do
we have polling data to support your thesis, or is this just an opinion
through intelligence?''
Mr. Fife responded, ``It is an opinion that comes from intelligence.
It comes from diplomatic reporting.''
``But there is no polling data, I take it?''
``I do not know whether there are. I do not know off the top of my
head whether there is polling data.''
So then I said, ``Let me ask this question. Let me pose you a
hypothetical question. If we have a free and fair election and if as a
result of that election there is a leadership that does not necessarily
feel warmly towards the United States, are we unconditionally willing
to accept that particular leadership, presuming again free and fair
elections?''
Mr. Fife answers, ``We are going to be working with the Iraqis to get
a government organized, and part of that is going to be organizing a
constitution and a bill of rights.''
Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. Speaker, I think the questioning was a precursor,
as mine was, when Secretary Powell appeared before the committee before
that, and I asked the Secretary how long, how many lives will we lose,
how long will we be there, how much will it cost, and are we nation
building?
And I know that my colleagues have listened certainly for the decade
that I have been here, listened to our colleagues on the other side of
the aisle talk about how they abhorred the concept of nation-building
when we were in Bosnia and other places, stopping real atrocities that
were taking place, and hearing we are into nation-building.
And yet as the gentleman was trying to elicit from the witness before
our Committee on International Relations, which we both sit on, we have
no real planning. There was Jay Gardner, who was designated as the head
of the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance. Here we
have the Department of Defense doing nation-building, something that we
consistently heard our colleagues on the other side of the aisle rail
against, and he in essence was on the job a full 3 weeks, and after all
of that preparation that supposedly took place for him to be there, we
get rid of him in 3 weeks. He was going to develop a national assembly
of Iraqis, and that did not work. And then his State Department
successor, Ambassador Bremer, thought that perhaps seven opposition
groups might be able to work effectively as an interim government. That
was soon abandoned.
Now we are talking about a so-called advisory council of 20 or 25
Iraqis, but this latest plan of an advisory council seems to minimize,
not increase, the participation of Iraqis in the process for months, if
not longer.
So here we are in this preemption doctrine for which we now have
serious questions about the underpinnings under which we committed
massive force because it was alleged at the time that there was a clear
and present danger to the United States. We are told by the
administration, well, you have to have a lot more time; and yet we did
not want to give any more time to U.N. weapons inspectors, but we are
asked to give enormous amounts of time here. And we have the full roam
of the country uninhibited. And then we supposedly were prepared for
the post-Saddam era, and we seem not to be able to put that together,
or I am not sure what our intent is.

{time} 2350

We do not seem to know where Saddam Hussein is. We also do not seem
to know where Osama bin Laden is, and that is a whole other issue in
terms of Afghanistan and what happened. And so you have the confluence
of all of these issues.
Mr. McDERMOTT. There is one other one you have left out. That is our
allies, the British. Their defense chiefs are quoted in the newspaper
as saying they are resisting calls for British troops to be sent to
join American forces in Baghdad because they could, quote, be sucked
into a quagmire. They do not want British troops caught up in the
rising tide of anti-American violence. So even our allies are stepping
back now and saying, hey, look, you guys got over in there and you said
you knew what you were doing.
It is more complicated even than our own problems.
Mr. MENENDEZ. The point really is that it is the congressional
responsibility for oversight that we have on behalf of all of the
American people to raise the questions and get the answers that
ultimately lead us to make the right choices in the future, informed
choices, based upon real substantive information, not perceived or
possibly manipulated information, and to be understanding that we have
got to be prepared. We won the war; we salute the men and women who did
not ask whether this was the right conflict or not but just responded
to the Nation's call. I visited one of our bases and the young men and
women there told me, Congressman, we don't ask whether this is right or
wrong, we don't pick the time, the place or the conflict, we just
respond. We salute them for that. But before we send those young men
and women, sons and daughters of Americans of this country, we should
know that we are sending them on the right information, that we have a
plan not only to win the war but then to achieve the peace and to make
sure that the seeds that we seek to sow in terms of democracy take
place. Those are some of our concerns I think in this process.
Mr. HOEFFEL. The gentleman from New Jersey speaks very eloquently
about congressional responsibilities, the things we ought to be asking
about. You were talking about how to get a representative government
started in Iraq. It seems to me that what Congress ought to be pushing
the administration to focus on in our efforts to create liberty is to
create the institutions of liberty first. We cannot have a democratic
system in Iraq if they do not have the institutions of a free press and
a functioning judiciary and the traditions of free speech and a civil
society and a noncorrupt bureaucracy. In fact, all that needs to be
founded in some written constitution that has public support and public
input. What does my colleague think we need to do to achieve that, if
he agrees with me that that is the fundamental goal that we have got to
establish first before democracy is ever going to come to the people of
Iraq?
Mr. MENENDEZ. I think there are a variety of things. I am sure some
of our colleagues have some ideas as well. But fundamentally you have
to get Iraqi civil society back engaged. You have to create the
wherewithal to show that not only were we liberators, hopefully, but at
the end of the day that we have also come to help really create a
better society and to assist Iraqis to be able to do that. That comes
with, first of all, at least having the functioning entities of civil
society be able to take place, as you suggested, some of those
institutions. As our colleagues suggested, to get some of the basic
fundamental services that Iraqis would expect from a liberating force
to take place and to begin to act. So, clean water, running sewerage
systems, the opportunity for electricity to be present, the return to
schools of children, the opportunity for hospitals to

[[Page H5086]]

be able to take care of the sick. The rudimentary elements of a civil
society start there. And then to engage civil society within Iraq to
begin to perform some of their own functions and to also ask the
beginnings of Iraq's natural resources to go for the purposes of
helping Iraq rebuild itself. I think the American people have the right
to know how long are we going to continue to be there? How many more
lives will we lose? How much will it cost? And, as I always listen to
our colleagues here in the House and in committee, what is our exit
strategy? What is our exit strategy?
Mr. DELAHUNT. We do not seem to be hearing that anymore.
Mr. MENENDEZ. No, we do not hear about exit strategies or nation
building anymore.
Mr. DELAHUNT. Or lockboxes, either, for that matter. As the both of
you were talking about the men and women that really made us all proud,
and we consider our very best, I think it is important to state
unequivocally that when they return, it is not simply about parades, it
is about respecting them and delivering the promise and the commitment
to veterans that I know each and every member of our party is willing
to make. No cuts in veterans' benefits. None at all. That
is unacceptable and would be unconscionable.

But let me end my digression and go back to the issue of nation
building and just read a paragraph from the May 19 Washington Post. It
is entitled ``Plan to Secure Postwar Iraq Faulted.'' The author writes
the following paragraph:
``In interviews here and in Washington and in testimony on Capitol
Hill, military officers, other administration officials, and defense
experts said the Pentagon ignored lessons from a decade of peacekeeping
operations in Haiti, Somalia, the Balkans and Afghanistan.''
Let us be candid and let the American people hear this: that in
Afghanistan, we are at great risk of returning to that kind of chaos,
that kind of volatility, instability that occurred prior to our
invasion of Afghanistan. It is a mess in Afghanistan. The President of
that country, President Karzai, cannot leave Kabul. The rest of that
nation and many sections of Pakistan bordering Afghanistan are rife
with Taliban and with other terrorist groups. And we have failed
miserably in reconstruction efforts there. I would hope that this
administration and this House would look to Afghanistan as an example
of what not to do and go forward with a sensible plan that we can all
support, because we know our responsibility.
Mr. HOEFFEL. Would the gentleman agree that using NATO as a
peacekeeping force might be the right thing to do in both Afghanistan
and Iraq?
Mr. DELAHUNT. I think what is rather ironic, of course, is in
Afghanistan, our NATO ally Germany is playing a key and vital role.
Afghanistan militarily was truly a coalition of the willing, not a
coalition of the coerced, the bribed, but a coalition of the willing.
But I think it is important that we approach the reconstruction of both
Afghanistan and Iraq on a multilateral basis. We cannot ask the
American people to continue to bear the full burden. We have already
made a comment in Iraq which practically guarantees a new hospital in
every Iraqi city, 100 percent maternity coverage for Iraqi women that
is going to be funded by the taxpayers of the United States. And what
are we doing here in this Congress under this Republican leadership to
Medicare? We are cutting it by $95 billion. That is not fair to the
American taxpayer. It is not fair to the American people.
Mr. HOEFFEL. I thank the gentleman for his comments, for his
leadership in the House and his eloquence on the House Committee on
International Relations.
Would my friend from New Jersey like to make some final remarks as
our time is short?
Mr. MENENDEZ. Very briefly, I appreciate the gentleman's engaging in
the dialogue, and I hope we will continue it in the future. I think we
owe America's young men and women who went into harm's way, that before
we call upon them again for a preemptive strike, that we are doing so
based upon sound information, that we are based on intelligence that is
honest, truthful and transparent, that we ultimately have a plan not
only to win the war but to win the peace, because we are losing
soldiers every day. It is not as well publicized, but we are losing
soldiers every day. We deserve, before we send the finest to answer the
Nation's call, and that is where the congressional responsibility takes
place, in asking these questions, in getting answers and being able to
prepare for the future.
Mr. HOEFFEL. I thank my colleagues for joining me.

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