[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 93 (Monday, June 23, 2003)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8381-S8383]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
UNITED STATES POLICY TOWARD ISRAEL
Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I thank the Republican manager in the
Chamber and my colleague, the Democratic whip, for allowing me time to
speak as in morning business.
What I want to do is call attention to some incidents that have
occurred recently and that were highlighted, in my view, in the New
York Times, on the front page, today. I will read from parts of these
articles. I want to explain the reason I am so exercised by what I see.
I ask unanimous consent that the full text of these two articles be
printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
[From the New York Times, June 23, 2003]
After Missile Raid on Convoy, U.S. Hunts for Hussein's DNA
(By Douglas Jehl with Eric Schmitt)
Washington, June 22.--An American Predator drone aircraft
firing Hellfire missiles destroyed a convoy last week that
was believed to be carrying fugitive Iraqi leaders, and
experts are trying to determine whether those killed might
have included Saddam Hussein or his sons, United States
government officials said today.
The officials said they had obtained intelligence
indicating that senior Iraqi leaders were traveling in the
convoy. They suggested that the intelligence might have come
from an intercepted telephone conversation or an informant.
The attack took place Wednesday near the Syrian border in
western Iraq.
There was no evidence so far, the officials said, to
support the idea that Mr. Hussein or his sons might have been
killed in the raid, and some officials were doubtful that
they were. But they said intelligence teams, including DNA
experts, were at the site to review the wreckage and assess
the evidence.
Officials declined to say how many people, or vehicles,
were in the convoy, but they said it had been completely
destroyed. If DNA evidence was the only method of determining
who had been killed, it could take days to get the results.
A British newspaper, The Observer, disclosed the attack in
today's issue and said it had been an attempt to kill Mr.
Hussein. The Pentagon and the United States Central Command
declined today to discuss that report, and American officials
who agreed to discuss it on the condition of anonymity said
the United states had never been certain that Mr. Hussein or
his sons were in the convoy.
Still, administration officials said the strike underscored
a growing belief among American intelligence officials that
Mr. Hussein and his sons were not killed during the war and
have remained in Iraq. The attack on the convoy showed the
pressure of a stepped-up manhunt after information provided
by a Hussein confidant who was detained last week.
The aide, Abid Hamid Mahmoud al-Tikriti, 46, who had served
as the Iraqi leader's secretary and bodyguard, told his
American interrogators that Mr. Hussein and his sons, Uday
and Qusay, survived the war, and that he himself traveled to
Syria after the conflict with Mr. Hussein's sons before being
expelled, according to Defense Department officials who have
said they have not been able to corroborate those claims.
A senior administration official said tonight that
President Bush had been aware of the strike before it
occurred but did not have to approve it. The official said a
team was moving in to try to recover the DNA of those in the
convoy, but it was unclear if they had yet arrived at the
scene.
Some American officials described the attack as having been
in the same category as the March 19 and April 7 attacks on
compounds where Mr. Hussein and his sons were believed to be
hiding. American intelligence analysts now believe that Mr.
Hussein and his sons probably survived both those attacks.
A senior administration official described the intelligence
that led to the Wednesday attack as a good lead. But another
administration official said, ``I have no information that
leads us to believe we got Saddam.'' A military officer said
intelligence reports that Mr. Hussein or his sons might have
been in the convoy might have been based more on hope than
evidence.
``There might be people crossing their fingers, but it's
just like a year ago, when they were crossing their fingers''
in the hopes of capturing Osama bin Laden, one military
official said, Mr. bin Laden, Al Qaeda's leader, is still
believed to be alive after 21 months in which he has been the
target of an intense manhunt.
In a television interview today, King Abdullah of Jordan
said he had heard reports several days ago that Mr. Hussein
and his sons were in Iraq's western desert region. But he
said he had heard many reports of their whereabouts in recent
weeks and months and did not know if this one was accurate.
``It's like Elvis,'' King Abdullah said on the ABC News
program ``this Week.'' ``There's a lot of sightings of him
all over the place.''
Members of the Senate Intelligence Committee, including the
chairman, Senator Pat Roberts, Republican of Kansas, said in
television appearances today that they had not been informed
of any new missile strike aimed at the Iraqi leader. Still,
Senator Roberts, speaking on ``Fox News Sunday,'' said, ``I
will not be surprised at any military action that would lead
to the possibility that we have now finally killed Saddam
Hussein.''
Senator John D. Rockefeller IV of West Virginia, the
ranking Democrat on the committee, said on the same program
that any confirmation of the death of Mr. Hussein would serve
to undercut the morale of fighters who are staging hit-and-
run attacks on American soldiers and at the same time instill
confidence among the broader Iraqi public.
The search for Mr. Hussein has been led by Task Force 20, a
secret military organization that is working closely with
American intelligence agencies and whose members include
[[Page S8382]]
special Army and Navy counterterrorist teams.
The United States is flying U-2 spy planes and RC-135
electronic eavesdropping aircraft over Iraq on a regular
basis. Both are able to scoop up electronic emissions and
pinpointing locations for strike aircraft or Predator drones,
which are piloted by remote control and can be either armed
or unarmed; they are being flown from an air base in Iraq.
One senior administration official noted that Hellfire
missile attacks on convoys by the Predators were rare and
would not have been carried out except on the basis of good
intelligence about an important target.
Other officials said that the United States had obtained
good reconnaissance photos showing that the convoy had been
destroyed, but that those photographs did not clarify who had
been in the wreckage.
``Although we do have good intelligence, you don't know if
you have someone until you've seen the analysis from the
ground,'' said one senior American officer.
____
[From the New York Times, June 23, 2003]
Israelis and Palestinians Pressed to Compromise
(By Steven R. Weisman)
Shuneh, Jordan, June 22.--Secretary of State Colin L.
Powell joined with top European, Arab and United Nations
diplomats today to press for concessions in peace talks
between Israel and the Palestinians, but their efforts were
punctured by violence in the Gaza Strip that left four
Palestinians dead.
In an illustration of the frustrations of the Middle East,
diplomats here reported that before the latest deaths in
Gaza, negotiators had made some progress in their talks over
transferring security in most of the Gaza Strip from Israel
to the Palestinian Authority. There was no telling tonight
whether that progress would be set back.
The four Palestinians from the Aksa Martyrs Brigades were
first said to have been killed today by Israeli tank fire,
though other reports said they might have died when a bomb
they were planting exploded prematurely.
The day's events lent a surreal cast to the scene here at
the World Economic Forum in a resort on the Dead Sea, where
more than 1,200 envoys, officials, business leaders and other
conferees hailed recent progress in the Israeli-Palestinian
situation even as the bitterness of that dispute coursed
through countless conversations.
Coming to the end of one of his longest trips as secretary
of state, Mr. Powell started in the morning by expressing
mild but unmistakable criticism of Israel's killing of a top
Hamas leader on Saturday night.
``I regret we had an incident that could be an impediment
to progress,'' Mr. Powell said, referring to the killing of
Abdullah Qawasmeh, a leading Hamas figure. ``I would much
rather on a Sunday morning wake up to find that we are moving
forward, and it was not necessary to have this kind of
activity on either side.''
The secretary's terse reference to Israel's latest strike
against suspected Palestinian terrorists marked the second
time in two weeks that the United States felt compelled to
criticize Israel, if only obliquely. The week before last,
President Bush rebuked Israel for an attempt to kill a Hamas
leader, saying it had undercut peace talks.
But the rebuke for Israel was mixed today with exhortations
directed at the Palestinians by Mr. Powell and others to take
action to stop attacks on Israeli soldiers and citizens so as
to fortify Middle East peace efforts that have looked more
promising recently than at any time in the past two and a
half years.
Two diplomatic tracks were underway in Israel that were the
focus of much of the discussion here on the Dead Sea. One was
Israel's negotiation with the Palestinians on Gaza. The other
was the Palestinian Authority's negotiations to achieve a
cease-fire with Hamas.
A cease-fire with Hamas is supported by the Palestinians'
leadership and by its main Arab backers, Saudi Arabia, Egypt
and Jordan. All of them say they would prefer such an
arrangement to a civil war between the militant groups and
the shaky security forces under Mahmoud Abbas, the
Palestinian prime minister.
American and Israeli officials say they are less impressed
with the cease-fire talks, explaining that if there is a
cease-fire, it almost certainly will have to be followed by
aggressive actions by Palestinian security forces against
Hamas, including arrests, forced disarmament and potential
clashes.
For now, the negotiations on the Gaza Strip and the Hamas
cease-fire talks, while not officially connected, appear to
be intertwined, making progress on both even more difficult.
Arab, European and American diplomats all say, for example,
that Mr. Abbas may be waiting for a cease-fire before
reaching an accord to take over the Gaza area.
On the other hand, Israel's prime minister, Ariel Sharon,
may be holding up approval of a deal on the Gaza Strip until
he sees how Mr. Abbas is going to handle Hamas. Some here
speculate that Mr. Sharon may also be waiting to close the
Gaza deal when Condoleezza Rice, President Bush's national
security adviser, visits Israel late next week.
Arab diplomats attending the economic forum here assailed
Israel for the killing of Mr. Qawasmeh and for its policy of
pinpoint killings of militant leaders. Mr. Abbas's son said
here that he thought Israel was deliberately trying to
sabotage the cease-fire negotiations.
Mr. Powell, who left Washington a week ago for Cambodia and
then traveled to Bangladesh before arriving here on Thursday
night, made an emotional appeal for restraint by both
Palestinians and Israelis at a news conference and in a
speech this afternoon.
No less significant, Mr. Powell joined with Secretary
General Kofi Annan of the United Nations and the foreign
ministers of the European Union and Russia to sound the same
theme. The four officials, sometimes referred to as the
quartet, devised the staged peace plan for a Palestinian
state known as the road map.
In a statement read by Mr. Annan, the four officials said
they ``deplore and condemn the brutal terror attacks against
Israeli citizens'' carried out by Palestinian militants,
citing not only Hamas but Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Al
Aksa Martyrs Brigades. ``All Palestinian individuals and
groups must end acts of terror against all Israelis,
anywhere,'' the group said.
But there was also tough talk directed at Israel, including
``deep concern over Israeli military actions that result in
the killing of innocent Palestinians and other civilians.''
Mr. Annan, going beyond the statement, called on Israel
``not to use disproportionate force in civilian areas,'' to
stop demolitions of Palestinian homes and to stop engaging in
``extra-judicial killings.''
The talk in the corridors here was about the Hamas and Gaza
negotiations next door in Israel, however. A diplomat close
to the negotiators said they seemed ``pretty close'' to
resolving the Gaza dispute, which has centered on Israel's
demand that it be allowed to maintain a security presence
along the main road that runs the length of the Gaza Strip.
Israel maintains that is must keep some forces on the road
both to protect Israeli settlers in several pockets of Gaza
and to make sure that Hamas and other groups do not regroup
and arm themselves to carry out attacks in Israel itself.
A source of surprise to many Arab and European diplomats
here is the increasing evidence of the United States'
willingness to make demands on Israel to take parallel
actions--not only by giving up the Gaza Strip, but also by
dismantling ``outposts'' of settlements and releasing
prisoners.
The American demands on Israel are thought to be based on
the belief that without such actions, Mr. Abbas will not have
the political support to act against Hamas, diplomats say.
``The Americans are not really letting the Israelis off the
hook on this,'' said a diplomat. ``We all realize that time
is running out.''
Mr. LAUTENBERG. The first article from the New York Times is
headlined ``After Missile Raid on Convoy, U.S. Hunts for Hussein's
DNA.''
An American Predator drone aircraft firing Hellfire
missiles destroyed a convoy last week that was believed to be
carrying fugitive Iraqi leaders, and experts are trying to
determine whether those killed might have included Saddam
Hussein or his sons, United States government officials said
today.
The officials said they had obtained intelligence
indicating that senior Iraqi leaders were traveling in the
convoy. They suggested that the intelligence might have come
from an intercepted telephone conversation or an informant.
The attack took place Wednesday near the Syrian border in
western Iraq.
There was no evidence so far, the officials said, to
support the idea that Mr. Hussein or his sons might have been
killed in the raid, and some officials were doubtful that
they were. But they said intelligence teams, including DNA
experts, were at the site to review the wreckage and assess
the evidence.
Officials declined to say how many people, or vehicles,
were in the convoy, but they said it had been completely
destroyed. If DNA evidence was the only method of determining
who had been killed, it could take days to get the results.
The other article is printed almost side by side on the front page of
the New York Times today. I read the first paragraph of the second
article:
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell joined with European,
Arab and United Nations diplomats today to press for
concessions in peace talks between Israel and the
Palestinians, but their efforts were punctured by violence in
the Gaza Strip that left four Palestinians dead.
Further on:
Coming to the end of one of his longest trips as Secretary
of State, Mr. Powell started in the morning by expressing
mild but unmistakable criticism of Israel's killing of a top
Hamas leader on Saturday night.
``I regret that we had an incident that could be an
impediment to progress,'' Mr. Powell said, referring to the
killing of Abdullah Qawasmeh, a leading Hamas figure. ``I
would much rather on a Sunday morning wake up to find that we
are moving forward, and it wasn't necessary to have this kind
of activity on either side.''
The Secretary's reference to Israel's latest strike against suspected
Palestinian terrorists marked the second time in 2 weeks that the
United States felt compelled to criticize Israel, if only obliquely.
The week before last, President Bush rebuked Israel for an attempt to
kill a Hamas leader, saying it undercut peace talks.
[[Page S8383]]
I call attention to the two stories that appeared side by side on the
front page of today's New York Times with the headlines they were
carrying. I was struck by the fact that officials are still trying to
determine how many people were killed in the missile attack. The U.S.
military struck the convoy that they believed carried wanted
terrorists. And I support that, by the way. We are still waiting for
CIA and Department of Defense corroboration that, indeed, regime
members rather than civilians were hit in the attack.
The other story reports, as I mentioned before, how Secretary Powell
expressed mild but unmistakable criticism of Israel's killing of a top
Hamas official this past Saturday.
It just so happens that this past weekend, the Israeli Defense Forces
targeted a Hamas leader by the name of Abdullah Qawasmeh who
masterminded the death of 52 Israelis. If this number were converted to
American lives on a proportionate basis, he would have killed more than
2,400 of our citizens. How would we react to that?
There is a curious inconsistency between how this administration is
conducting its global war against terrorists--which, again, I support,
including operations against remnants of the Iraqi regime--and how we
expect our ally, Israel, to deal with its terrorist threats.
I support a roadmap to peace, and I am pleased to see the
administration live up to its responsibilities by reentering as a
mediator in one of the world's most intractable conflicts. But I also
believe that no peace process or roadmap will ever work when terrorists
are placated or appeased. The roadmap can only go forward when all
parties uniformly denounce and resist Hamas, Jihad, and the other
enemies of peace.
So I believe we must support Israel in its war against terrorists and
act consistently in conducting our foreign policy.
Mr. President, with that, I yield the floor.
____________________